The Violet Hour
by brightblue
Summary: Ziva David, now a literature professor, is drawn back into the life she thought she left behind. Is it coincidence? Fate? Or someone's design? Tony/Ziva, casefic, AU...very, very AU.
1. Prologue

Hello everyone! I'm back with what I hope will be a fun AU fic. Warning: This is VERY AU! This is essentially a "what if Gibbs didn't exist?" universe. As you can see, the characters I've chosen to include all have very different trajectories from what we saw on screen. Frankly, a few wormed their way in because I wanted to play with them, perhaps a bit out of bitterness for the way that their arcs ended on the show. This story is an ode to strong women. We'll deal with some heavier topics as time goes on so if subjects/themes start to creep up that make you uncomfortable, please do not be afraid to click yourself out of the story. That said, this is meant to be an action/adventure/romance story so things won't get too dark. I wanted to start posting to keep my butt moving along as I write. It's about 60% written and I have every intention of posting on a weekly basis when possible. This is my first long fic since Tangled Up and my first fic in quite awhile- I hope I'm not too rusty and that you enjoy!

_Disclaimer: I don't own them, but I do own all the new characters within and this new sort of world I've created. So ha! But, really, not mine... Sigh. _

**Prologue**

_(Monday)_

A pattering of footsteps could be heard in response to Ziva David's knock on the door. From the outside, it was easy to imagine pink-socked feet hurrying across the maple floors inside the old colonial, slipping and sliding in their eagerness to greet a guest.

"Emma! Ziva's here!" An adult female voice rang out from inside the house, though the declaration was redundant.

Waiting patiently outside the front door, the smile on Ziva's face wasn't forced. She didn't mind the wait. It was a mild early spring afternoon in D.C. The promise of warmth, sunshine, and light jacket weather hung in the air; cold and ice seemed like a distant memory, an impossibility, even as tufts of snow still littered the lawn, the last remnants of a long winter. Ziva bit down on her grin as her student could be heard struggling with the heavy door. A few seconds later, a breathless six year-old girl won the battle; the door swung open with a force that nearly toppled the child. Rebounding easily, Emma's face lit up when she registered that her visitor had really, truly arrived.

"I missed you so much!" Emma swooned into Ziva's arms. Ziva could do little more than laugh and scoop up the girl, hugging her close.

"What a greeting, my love!" Ziva gave the girl's mess of strawberry-blonde hair a stroke before easing her back down to the ground. Emma wouldn't have it, though, and remained attached to Ziva's leg. Ziva good-naturedly dragged her across the threshold, not caring that her grey slacks would surely be good and wrinkled as a result.

"Such a drama queen," Jenny Shepard, Emma's mother, came into view, giving her daughter's enthusiasm a skeptical eye. Ziva ignored the barnacle on her leg for a moment to give her close friend a kiss on the cheek.

Entering Jenny's home was always was always an experience for Ziva, something that had happily never become routine despite her frequent visits. There was something about Jenny's large colonial—its stateliness, its elegance, maybe, though it never felt stuffy or cold. The home was just that—a _home_. From the outside, the colonial looked like any other on the block. It was the so-called American dream: nestled on a quiet, tree-lined street, just blocks away from a prestigious university, it spoke of comfortable wealth and a picture-perfect life within. Ziva knew well enough that a façade of perfection rarely told the full story but, in Jenny's case, life behind the home's blue door was close to it.

For every lush carpet and designer armchair in the home, there was a piece of artwork adorning the wall that Jenny had bought from a local coffee shop or an eccentric vase from a far-flung marketplace. Emma's art stations and elaborate block cities littered the floors. Yesterday's dishes still rested in the sink and muddy rain boots were left to dry in the foyer. The home felt lived in, comfortable, and brought to Ziva's mind memories of those few perfect summers at her family's beach house in Haifa, when no one scolded her for tracking sand into kitchen and poorly glued shell sculptures served as centerpieces for lazy dinners. She had so few yellow-tinted memories of her past; no, her childhood had quickly darkened to black, blue, and red...so much red.

There was something about Jenny's house, though, and maybe just the presence of her friend in general, that allowed Ziva to let her guard down, made her feel like she was slipping into one of those sun-soaked moments of long ago. It was one of the few places Ziva didn't feel like she was putting on a show, adapting to foreign surroundings, or fulfilling a role. She was just Ziva here and that was enough. Especially to the little girl wrapped around her leg like her life depended on it.

Taking in her daughter's behavior, Jenny let out a sigh. She shook her head, rolling her icy blue eyes skyward. Ziva chuckled. Sensing what was about to happen, Emma gripped Ziva even tighter. Squatting down to her daughter's level, Jenny made a show of rolling up the sleeves on her crisply tailored shirt before physically removing her child from Ziva's leg.

"If you want Ziva to keep giving you piano lessons, _free for Mommy_ piano lessons, then you shouldn't smother her," Jenny chided, as Emma moved into her embrace.

"Okay, Mommy," Emma sing-songed, apologies in her voice. Mother and daughter shared a look, scrunching up their matching noses at the same time. All was forgiven and love was assured. Emma wriggled out of Jenny's arms, smoothed down her polka-dot dress, and presented herself as ready to learn.

The trio made their way into the living room and to the piano as Jenny rattled off a list of directions in rapid fire. It was typical of the woman who not only chaired American University's Women's Studies program but also sat on the boards of a number of charities in town. Ziva listened carefully.

"If you don't mind, while you give Emma her lesson, I need to run back up to my office. This meeting is important, very important, and was rescheduled at the last minute," Jenny paused, eyes scanning the ceiling in the absence of her actual calendar. "It's for…well, long story, but you know I wouldn't ask otherwise. I have just been so busy and with all my work and Emma's activities... I hate to put you out, Ziva—

"It is fine," Ziva assured Jenny, putting a stop to her rambling with a hand in the air and an easy smile. She turned to her student, raising an eyebrow. "If Emma does well with her lesson, perhaps I will treat her to some Disney songs? Yes?"

Emma let out a cry of ecstasy. Jenny and Ziva laughed. So predictable was the girl in all obsessions princess-related. Ziva had taken some time to learn a few of her student's favorite songs on the piano as after-lesson treats. Emma liked to sing along with the confidence only a child could have.

"Oh, Em," Jenny shook her head as she pulled on her coat and grabbed her purse. "If my colleagues only knew…" She shared a look with Ziva, who winked in understanding. "Be good for Ziva!" But she needn't have warned Emma, as she was already perfectly poised at the piano and ready to go.

"Do not worry, Jen," Ziva waved Jenny out the door. "Emma is always a delight."

Jenny's argument to the contrary was cut off by Ziva closing and locking the door behind her. She turned back to the living room. "Now, Emma, show me what you have been practicing this week."

Ziva began to zone out as Emma stumbled through the chords of "Alouette" for the third time. She hummed along to keep the tempo up but Emma was struggling to make her fingers remember which keys to travel to next. Ziva gave her time to figure it out; the girl was a quick learner and only needed a little practice to create the muscle memory. Her eyes wandered around the room. Of all the rooms in the house, the living room was the coldest. The walls were a light grey, nearly pale violet. Jenny tended to favor warmer, brighter colors through the rest of her home. The grey was a trendy, elegant color and, true enough, looked lovely contrasted with the dark wood and lush fabrics throughout the room. Still, it wasn't as inviting as the rest of the spaces, didn't seem to reflect the vibrancy of the two women whose laughter and personalities abounded.

In a pause between notes, Ziva heard a clunk from the depths of the house. She sat up straighter, straining to hear. Of course, it was a big, old house and prone to creeks and groans. But this felt different. Calculated. The air of comfort, of safety, had evaporated from the room, leaving the hair on the back of Ziva's neck standing up. She listened closely in the dense silence between the plunks on the keyboard. But it remained quiet.

Too quiet.

And then: footsteps.

Ziva's heart raced. Surely she was being paranoid. Too many years of being on high alert followed by too many years of monotony had made her jumpy, prone to hearing footsteps in the settling of an old foundation.

"Ziva?" Emma paused mid-song, sensing she'd lost her teacher's attention. Taking a deep breath, Ziva pushed down her fear and focused on keeping Emma on-task.

"Good. That was enough for now. Let's study the next piece." She flipped the page on the piano book and directed Emma's attention to the sheet music.

In the quiet, Ziva concentrated hard. She filtered out the little puffs of breath Emma took as she read, the hum of the electronics in the kitchen, the tick of a grandfather clock in the hall. Nothing unusual. No more clunks, no more footsteps.

It was her mind playing tricks on her. That was all. It wouldn't be the first time she saw something sinister in an otherwise normal situation. She'd been born and bred to be suspicious, after all, and old habits were the hardest to break. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

_Thomp. Swish._ Breath. _Thomp. Thomp. Swish._

No. Not paranoid.

Someone was in the basement.

Ziva allowed herself a quick inhale, a mere heartbeat, before standing up from the piano bench. She tried to hide her panic, but Emma was too much like her mother, too adept at reading the room, to miss the rapid change in mood. The little girl's blue eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open in concern.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, love," she spoke loudly, "keep working on the music."

Emma remained unconvinced, a furrow marring her ivory brow. Ziva framed the little girl's face with her hands, stroking her cheeks lightly.

"Emma, listen to me," Ziva whispered, trying her best to keep her voice light despite the sudden tension in her muscles. "I need you to listen to me very closely. We are going to play a game. I need you to find a very good place to hide."

"We're playing hide and seek?" Emma's lip trembled. Her eyes darted around the room, hesitant.

"Yes." Ziva nodded, hoping her understanding of the game was the same as the child's. Ziva followed Emma's gaze to the ottoman in the middle of the room. She remembered it opened for extra storage in which Jenny kept a few throw blankets they'd last used lounging with glasses of chardonnay, gossiping about a faculty meeting. "Is that a good spot?"

Emma nodded slowly. Ziva heard more shuffled steps in the basement. She willed her young student to understand that this wasn't a typical game and, thankfully, Emma seemed to get it.

"Perfect. You need to hide right now. Stay there until I find you. _Quietly_." Ziva gave the little girl a kiss on her head and ushered her to the ottoman, helping her climb inside. There was exactly enough space for Emma to curl up in the makeshift nest of blankets. Ziva frowned at the thought of enclosing the girl in a box. Sensing her worry, Emma smiled and pulled aside a blanket.

"It's safe, see," she assured, revealing a circular hole cut into the bottom of the box. Probably a safety measure for other children who realized what a good hiding spot it made.

"Smart girl," Ziva murmured, voice stern. "I will be back soon. Do not come out until I say so. Remember—_quiet_." She gave Emma one last smile before closing her in. As soon as she was out of sight, Ziva's mind switched tracks, following an automatic path—possible exits, the likely route the intruder was taking, available weapons, potential pitfalls. Survival.

Ziva knew her best bet was the kitchen. The alarm console was there; she could notify the police. Plus, the intruder had to pass through the kitchen if he was coming up the basement stairs. The kitchen had the most weapons.

More footfalls. Then silence. He was waiting. Listening. Perhaps he had not expected anyone to be home. And yet he did not retreat when he had the chance. Ziva closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and forced her body into action. Once she was moving, the steps felt familiar, an old choreography that was ingrained in the fibers of her muscles.

A few light strides and Ziva was in the kitchen. She passed a wooden block of knives on the counter and quickly armed herself with two. One, a light chopping knife that would be easily and accurately thrown. In her left hand, she opted for a larger knife, ideal for hand-to-hand combat. A few more steps and she hit the panic button on the alarm console. Another touch and the system went into silent mode. She had no intention of scaring off this intruder.

_Zoooop_.

With an electronic whimper, the power cut out in the house. Ziva clutched her knives harder, positioned herself by the stairs. She waited. Breathed.

Then footsteps. Slowly. Up the stairs. _Thomp swish_. _Thomp swish_. _Thomp swish_.

Ziva felt adrenaline wash through her body; a buzzing in her head started. The corner of her lip curled up in anticipation, a slightly sick thrill, because she hadn't seen any real action in years and all her training, all her confidence, was still there like a second skin.

_Thomp swish_.

Her heart held steady. Her jaw clenched. Her fingers twitched on her knife. The whole kitchen stilled, suspended in silence like a wave about to crash.

_Thomp swish_.

Hold. Breathe. Twitch.

_Thomp swish_.

Crash.

A flash of black clothing was all it took for Ziva to let her knife fly. As the intruder staggered into the room, he let out cry of pain, clutching at his shoulder. He threw the knife to the ground; it scratched and clattered across the slate floor.

Wildly, the man searched for his attacker. Dark eyes filled with surprise and panic as he took her in. In that moment, Ziva impressed every detail of his face into her memory—white skin, stubble, jagged scar on his cheek, green tattoo slithering up his neck.

She readied her stance for a fight. Held his gaze as he adjusted to the unanticipated adversary.

He raised a gun at her. Its shining barrel was mere feet from her face, but that was hardly a new sight. While she still had the element of surprise on her side, Ziva leapt at the intruder. Her other knife clanged to the floor as she chopped at his wrist with her right hand and swiped the gun with her left. She heard his trigger finger snap. But he was a trained fighter, too, and came back at her swiftly. She couldn't get the gun secured in her own hand before he had his hands on her, twisting her into a hold. Instinct kicked in and Ziva turned into the hold, gripping the attacker's arms hard and using his size and momentum against him, flipping him onto the floor. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest. The gun skidded across the slate and wedged itself under the oven. Blood, thick and dark, smeared across the grey stone as the intruder rolled to stand; her first throw had done significant damage to his flesh.

Their eyes met as they both lunged for the fallen weapons. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Ziva beat the man to a knife but as she bent down to grab it; he managed to sweep her onto the ground with his leg. Ziva groaned as her head caught the edge of the white marble countertop on the way down. Blood began running down the side of her face.

The attacker found a knife and advanced on her with a menacing smile. But Ziva wasn't done yet. Her fall had put her in grabbing distance of the gun. In one swift roll, she had herself propped up, gun pointed at the man's face, confidence in her eyes. She would shoot. Fear blossomed on his face. He leapt for the safety of the stairwell. Scrambling to her feet, Ziva gave chase.

The intruder moved down the stairs with surprising agility given his size. Ziva didn't have enough the time or coordination to line up a shot and maneuver the obstacle as well. She settled for following him, hoping she would get her chance once they descended into the basement. But her head was already swimming and the stairs were steep, shallow, and surprisingly difficult to manage. By the time she made it to the basement, the gunman was nearly out the basement door. Ziva saw her chance and took it.

Without hesitation, she steadied her grip on the gun and pulled the trigger. A howl from the man in black told her she'd hit something. But he was undeterred and escaped out the door.

Ziva took a step to follow him but the floor rushed up at her. Her vision blurred. The purple glow of dusk beyond the door suddenly looked miles away. She swallowed back the bile that crept up her throat.

The sirens were closer, nearly as loud as the sound of the gunshot still echoing in the basement, and so Ziva clicked the safety on the gun and lowered it to the floor. Her hands went to her knees as the room tilted and swayed. The blood thundering in her ears became deafening, drowning out the sirens. Her body rejected the swell of adrenaline in her system; her stomach pitched and heaved.

Ziva fought to take in air, even and slow. She kept her body bent, head down so that blood kept flowing to her brain. She closed her eyes and saw nothing but shadows, flashes of black and grey. The monsters from her past awake, howling, and nipping at her heels.

* * *

**Thoughts and feelings? We're just getting started... Next chapter will be up in a few days! Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 1

**AN:** Thanks everyone for all your kind, encouraging reviews! Here is the next part. Let me know what you think. Remember: This is VERY AU. ;-) Enjoy!

**Chapter 1**

_(Monday)_

"Two more hours, D. Just gotta make it two more hours."

"Famous last words, brother." Detective Anthony DiNozzo shook his head as he popped the mini-basketball in his hands back at his partner as hard as he could.

Detective Nathan Walker caught it easily, leveling his subordinate with a look. "And what did I tell you about calling me that?"

DiNozzo made his best puppy-dog face. It was an infuriatingly good puppy-dog face. "That you also feel a deep, almost blood-like bond between us? That you appreciate our camaraderie and unrivaled solve rate as much as I do?"

With a belly laugh, Nathan conceded the term of endearment to the man he had the misfortune to share a cube and a partnership with at the D.C. Metro Police Department. They had been partners for going on three years now. At first their pairing had been nothing short of a mess—Nathan had only been a handful of years with Homicide when Tony had come crawling back to Metro after a few years brown-nosing at some federal agency with too many letters for Walker to take seriously. It was rare for a detective to make the jump to federal agent. Despite the overlap in job responsibility, the feds tended to demand a more rigorous academic background than most cops possessed, that an ability to polish up real nice. So though many cops kidded themselves that they were just one big case away from being plucked out of the blue collar public servitude of the PD and transported to the cushy white-collar public servitude of the federal government, that didn't often happen.

DiNozzo, however, had somehow scored one such golden ticket. He'd made the leap from the perpetually sinking ship of Baltimore Homicide to the relatively unknown agency, NCIS, essentially the Navy Cops. Then, in a move that pretty much _never_ happened, after a few short years, he'd dived right back into the dirty waters of police work at Metro.

At the time, Nathan could only assume Tony had dug up some pretty highly classified dirt on the brass to leverage himself a coveted position in Metro's Homicide unit. Especially when he hadn't put in his time on the D.C. streets. The man was too pretty, too smooth-talking, to have any real talent. Besides, what kind of idiot bailed on an assured government salary? Walker was skeptical of the situation, to say the least, and had been pissed when Lieutenant Campbell had assigned the newbie as his partner. But orders were given to be followed, no matter how badly they stunk.

Though only a few years older than his new partner, Nathan had come on strong as elder statesman. DiNozzo, no stranger to being fresh meat, had taken the hazing about as good-naturedly as a root canal. Their first few months as partners had seen many bullpen verbal pissing matches and few solves.

Through it all, Campbell had repeatedly assured Walker that underneath DiNozzo's constant jibber-jabber was real police, that his talents had gone unrecognized at NCIS because there was a difference between solving cases by instinct and solving them by computer. So gradually, Walker had stopped strutting, started listening, and finally realized that Tony possessed some solid skills. Granted, the man remained a disaster in pretty much every other aspect of his life. Still, he had proven to be a solid detective, loyal to the badge, and unfortunately the best damn partner Nathan had ever had.

These days, the thought of DiNozzo trying to cut it as a G-Man never failed to make Walker chuckle. Sure, he'd look great on a recruitment brochure but the man definitely operated by his own set of rules, rules that rarely seemed to jive with what the higher-ups handed down.

Nathan shook his head as he watched Tony pretend to score a game-winning three-pointer, dancing and cheering around their cube like the Laker Girls were actually watching. Fine, so it had been a long, uneventful shift and cabin fever was clearly setting in. That said, he'd long ago come to cherish tedious, uneventful shifts if it meant he got home in time for dinner.

"Tish will kill me if I miss Bree's recital tonight. And I mean string me up from the ceiling by my man parts," Walker mused to his partner as Tony tried out some moves best left to the Harlem Globetrotters. Two more hours. Really, was it too much to ask that the good citizens of D.C. remain alive for the next two hours?

"She let you keep those?" Tony raised his eyebrows comically high. Nathan intercepted the basketball and drilled it at the side of his partner's face.

"Watch it, _brother_," Walker warned, wagging his finger at his junior partner as Tony inspected his face in the reflection of his monitor. "Someday you too will find yourself leashed up by a pretty girl. And I, for one, cannot wait to see it."

Nate knew that his dear wife, Tish, couldn't wait to see it either. Tish had made the mistake of setting DiNozzo up with one of her girlfriends back in the early days and had held the resulting disaster over his partner's head ever since. Tony had little problem winning over the various women he encountered, what with his over-the-top charm and stupid good looks; it was keeping them around that became the problem. Tish, ever the romantic, was convinced that once DiNozzo actually met The Right Girl his commitment issues would cease to exist; Walker just thought his partner was a dog who enjoyed sniffing around the park too much. And, as a man with a wife, two daughters, and a hefty mortgage payment, Nathan couldn't exactly blame him.

DiNozzo tilted his head at him. "Really? But then where will you get your vicarious thrills?"

Before Nathan could volley back a remark, their lieutenant made an appearance at the entrance to their cube. He groaned.

"Sorry, Walks," Tony smirked, flashing his white teeth in a grotesque imitation of Jack Nicholson, "seems like you're getting neutered tonight."

Lieutenant Campbell didn't bat an eye at the remark. The man was stone-faced as usual. "All right, fellas, you're up for a B&E in Spring Valley. A university professor's house."

Walker and DiNozzo shared a look.

"Since when does Homicide investigate burglaries?" DiNozzo, whose foot lived in his mouth, didn't fail to question the order. Nathan appreciated that his partner always beat him to that particular punch.

"Since an American U patrol got knocked off in the process," their boss gruffed.

And there it was. Nathan scrubbed at his face, seeing not only his daughter's dance recital fade into the past but any family time on the calendar for, oh, the next month or so. DiNozzo's head fell back in a silent scream.

"Play nice, gentlemen!" Campbell warned as he handed off a case file to Walker. No smile twisted the lieutenant's face, but the sparkle was unmistakable in his eyes.

"Shit, these university cases are the worst," DiNozzo complained as he clipped on his gun and badge. But there was a spring in his step. And this was what drove Nathan insane about his partner—the man was far too excited to land a new case, especially when it involved guaranteed head-aches and messiness as any involvement with university politics usually did. Walker would take a gang shooting with no witnesses any day of the week to the chaos they were about to walk into. Damn DiNozzo and his damn fancy suits. The man dressed far too nicely to be on the beat. Nathan raised an eyebrow at the shiny, grey business his partner had on that day. Damn pretty boy.

"Sign out a car, DiNozzo. I gotta call the wife."

With a fluttering wave, DiNozzo practically skipped out of the room. "Send Tish my love!"

* * *

"You were so brave, baby girl. So brave!"

Ziva stopped in her pacing of the den to watch Jenny pull Emma into her arms, cradling her and rocking her like an infant. Emma allowed the affection for a moment, nuzzling into Jenny's neck, before squirming into a more comfortable position just sitting on her mother's lap.

Ziva turned away and resumed pacing. Her eyes avoided the window, where police lights danced in the evening sky. She let out a shaky breath and stared at the paintings dotting the den's walls. Each image blurred into canvases of blurry blobs and wavy lines, colors swirling into meaningless shapes, until she blinked and then they snapped back into focus again. She pulled her thumb down from her mouth, irritated she kept biting at her cuticle.

"And how are you, Ziva?" Jenny's voice was equally as maternal with her friend.

"Fine." It sounded hollow even to her own ears, an old, worn response that fell from her lips more easily than the prayers she'd learned as a child. Fine. She was always fine, would always be fine, and it was that fact to which she clung all these years—no matter what life threw at her, she'd be fine. What other choice was there?

Jenny knew better than to press her further, thankfully. Though Ziva could feel her knowing gaze on her. Times like this, she hated how much Jenny knew about her past.

Ziva had almost forgotten they had a patrol officer standing guard in the doorway until his radio chirped to life.

"Dr. Shepard, the detectives are ready for you and your daughter now." The patrol officer gestured to the door, an awkwardly polite gesture that made Ziva grimace. Jenny, however, was nothing if not socially graceful and so accepted with a warm smile. She hoisted a yawning Emma securely into her arms before leaving the room. Ziva stood to follow but was held back by a warning hand from the officer.

"Sorry, ma'am, but I was told you're to give separate statements."

_Ma'am_? Ziva scowled and plopped down on the sofa with a huff. She bit at her thumb.

* * *

"…and then Ziva told me we were going to play hide 'n seek. So I hid in the ottoman. It's the best hiding spot. My mom said I'm not really 'spposed to hide there but Ziva said to pick a good hiding spot and it's _the best_ hiding spot."

Tony DiNozzo squeezed the bridge of his nose as their young witness chattered on. Emma Shepard was cute enough, but he doubted she held any key facts as to what went down tonight. Lucky for her, she had remained relatively safe and innocent in the whole ordeal. And while Tony was, of course, grateful for the lack of trauma she'd experienced, it meant that her story had taken on a grand quality more akin to a Pixar movie than reality. Still, Walker interviewed the girl with patience only a father seemed to possess. Emma seemed to feed off all the chaos in her previously calm home, sensing she was smack in the middle of an adventure. Tony was just relieved that her mother had consented to them interviewing Emma here, saving them all a trip to the station. The precinct was no place for a sweet little girl.

"Did you see or hear anything from your hiding spot?" Nathan pretended like he was going to write down every word that was said. Dr. Jenny Shepard looked on, a dark amusement playing in her crystal eyes.

Emma looked up at the ceiling with her best thinking face on. "Hmm. Oh! Yes!"

The kid was clearly gunning for an Oscar. Tony couldn't help but make a face. An elbow to his side by Walker fixed that quick enough. Really, though, were all rugrats this annoying?

"It was quiet for a long time. Like, a _long_ time. But then I heard like, fighting? I was so scared. I think… I think the bad man got hurt because I heard someone yell but it wasn't Ziva. And then there was like running...running away, away, away. I wanted to scream but Ziva told me to be quiet, so I stayed very quiet. I could hear the police cars then so I curled up really tightly so that I was hiding really good. Then there was a bang." Emma ran out of dramatic steam and seemed now to be welling up with tears. Her mother clutched her close. "I heard the sirens and waited and waited. Then Ziva came to let me out. She said I was very good at hide and seek." Emma finished her story with a proud, if slightly watery, smile.

Dr. Shepard, though obviously worried and shaken, grinned back. "You are, Em. I'm so very, very proud of you."

Tony watched Dr. Shepard with a careful gaze. She was a beautiful woman, skin clear and smooth—a symbol of her wealth and status rather than her actual age. She had a warmth about her, though, and obviously cared about her child. Still, the way she could cut her gaze with the slightest hint of a comment she didn't like told Tony she wasn't to be underestimated. But what could she be involved in that could possibly lead to a gunman breaking into her house in broad daylight, leaving a dead body, a dead _law enforcement_ body, in his wake?

Tony had stopped being surprised by people long ago. It was better to just assume a dark underbelly than to be blindsided finding one and, despite all appearances so far to the contrary, he was sure he'd find something dark and sinister lurking beneath the lush carpets of the Shepard home.

Walker scribbled down a few more notes before turning off the audio recorder on his phone and pocketing it. "You did a good job, Emma." He knelt down to the little girl's level. Her eyes widened. "I have two little girls myself and would be a very proud poppa if they stayed as cool as you did tonight."

Emma beamed, which quickly gave way to a yawn.

"Dr. Shepard," Tony began, "that's all the questions we have for you and your daughter right now. I think our team is going to need some more time in the house though. Do you have a place you can stay tonight?"

The woman nodded, a manicured hand coming to rest on her hip. "Yes. Emma's father's. He lives nearby—Cleveland Park."

"Great. Why don't you give him a call, pack up what you'll need for the next day or two, and we'll have a patrol car take you over." Tony clapped his hands together and stood up. He watched Dr. Shepard leave the room with Emma who, having told her story, was now an exhausted heap in her arms.

Tony turned to Walker. "Think the kid will be okay?"

His partner shrugged. "They're pretty resilient. At least no one she knows got hurt. And now she has a superhero piano teacher."

Tony frowned, running back through the information he'd stored at the forefront of his mind. "Yeah. And what do you make of that? What sort of piano teacher has the wherewithal to stash a kid before confronting a burglar?"

"Confronting and damn near taking down, by all accounts." Walker whistled appreciatively.

"All I'm saying is that Mrs. Milliken, my piano teacher, smelled like moth balls and could barely get her knees over the piano bench." Tony glanced around the sitting room again, searching for signs of corruption amidst the upholstery. Nothing. But, then again, the expensive oriental rugs in the home he'd grown up in had hid gin stains very well.

"You took piano lessons, pretty boy?" Nathan grinned. Tony winced at the ammo he'd inadvertently given his partner. Walker liked to pride himself on being street, which Tony wasn't fully sure he bought—Tony had worked in Baltimore for a few years and knew the area well enough to know that the man's neighborhood trended more towards carpools and block parties than corner deals and turf wars.

DiNozzo ignored the piano dig. "It just seems a bit strange."

"Oh yeah," Nathan agreed. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, for sure."

Chuckling, Tony followed his partner's lead as they moved to their next interview, the piano teacher. "So I'm a pretty boy for being forced to take piano lessons? And you can quote Hamlet and still have cred?"

"Can't help it," Walker gestured over his figure, making sure to flap his sharply cut trench coat as they moved down the hall. "Swagger like this is genetic, baby."

Using his whole body to roll his eyes, Tony purposefully stumbled along after his partner. "Ha! Get back to me when you have a woman turn to putty in your hands after you wow her with a little bit of Sir Duke on the ol' ivories."

Stopping short of the den where their piano teacher cum karate master waited for them, Walker turned back to DiNozzo, brown eyes twinkling in restrained mirth. "You can bet I'll be calling upon your jazz hands when this old broad gets cranky on us."

"Like I'd even need to try that hard," Tony muttered as they entered the room. "The septuagenarian ladies fall for my charm every time."

* * *

Ziva tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for her turn to be interviewed. In terms of interrogations she'd faced, this one was hardly daunting. It wasn't even technically an interrogation. An interview. That's what the officer kept calling it. Interview. Still, she had confirmed that she had her father's Embassy friend on speed-dial if things went south. She had toyed with calling her father preemptively; as soon as her name showed up on the police report, she knew he'd be calling, but she wasn't quite ready to bring Eli into this yet. Frankly, she was still hoping this was all some random coincidence.

Of course, she had never believed in those.

Standing up, she made her way over to a framed print on the wall. Ignoring the minimalist ink drawing of a naked woman under the glass, Ziva instead tried to examine her scalp wound in the reflection. The paramedics had cleaned up what had turned out to be a minor scrape to her temple that required no more than a small bandage. They'd urged her to go to the hospital to check for a concussion but Ziva had signed a release against it. She'd had a concussion before and it felt much worse than this. Still, her skin was paler than usual and she still had flecks of blood on her skin and staining her clothes. She didn't want to think about whose blood yet, though.

"Ms. David?" A voice interrupted her thoughts. Ziva turned, surprised she hadn't heard anyone approach, let alone enter, the room. She flinched when she noticed not one but two men in the room. The detectives.

"Dr. David," she corrected both the title and the pronunciation of her name. It was an absent, automatic reflex, buying her a few seconds as she gave the men the once over. She had pictured two haggard old men who had spent the better part of their career pulled up to a desk, men who drank and ate too much and would think they'd had this all figured out when it was clear there was more to this than just a burglary gone wrong. What she saw, rather, were two men who looked like detective poster boys, plucked from some primetime cop TV show—still young, clean cut, and with suits that weren't completely shameful. The detective who'd called her name, the shorter of the two, a lean black man with kind eyes and a bald head, nodded his apology at mispronouncing her name. Ziva frowned, rethinking the situation.

"You're the piano teacher?" The other detective, this one white and of sturdier build, asked, voice tinged in clear amusement. His eyes, light and sparkling in the dim room, raked down her body. The black detective gave off a vibe of warmth and intelligence; this one didn't seem to be thinking past the color of the bra she wore under her sweater.

Ziva straightened her posture, tilting her chin up in a show of confidence. She narrowed her eyes at the loutish man. He was extremely attractive, too attractive, with his perfect smile and expensive suit. He looked good and he knew it. Ziva resisted the urge to smirk right back at him, to let him know that his chiseled features meant nothing to her.

"Yes," she snipped. "I am also an associate professor of literature and Women's Studies at American University _occasionally_."

Something flared in the cocky detective's eyes at her sassiness; his shoulders rolled back a bit, drawing her eyes the line of his chest. Rather than making her stomach turn with disgust, the approving grin he gave her made her stomach flip in an entirely different way. Perhaps she should've been checked for a concussion after all?

The other detective cleared his throat. "Well. Dr. David, I'm Detective Walker." He held out a hand for Ziva to shake before gesturing to his partner. "And this is my _occasional_ partner, Detective DiNozzo."

Quirking her lips at Detective Walker's joke, _that_ man seemed charming, Ziva shook the other one's hand as well. The resulting jolt of awareness that shocked her body as his warm hand closed over hers surprised her; the feeling was apparently mutual, as DiNozzo's omni-present smile flickered at the sudden electrical surge. He pulled his hand away too quickly, his air of confidence wavering; thus, for a brief second, he seemed almost endearing. Blinking rapidly at her temporary insanity, Ziva buried her hand under her other arm in hopes to ignore the way it still sort of tingled. She focused completely on Detective Walker. Now was not the time for such petty distractions. He gestured for them to sit down.

"Do you mind if I record this conversation?" He asked, his eyes remaining steady on Ziva even as he jabbed his mute partner in the side. The gesture was meant to be discrete, she was sure of that, but Ziva caught it easily and couldn't stop the smug grin that crept up her face in response. It sent DiNozzo into a momentary scowl, which he quickly shook off in favor of a more professional demeanor.

Ziva consented to the recording, settling back on the couch and ignoring the urge to toy with the handsome detective. In another life, she would've turned on the seduction full force and had him eating out of her hands with a few well-chosen looks. Now, well, she just wanted to get this over with.

"Tell us what happened this evening," Detective DiNozzo urged, taking the reigns from his partner in a move that startled Ziva; she'd fully expected Walker to lead the interview. She was further set off-guard by the accompanying gentleness in DiNozzo's voice, at the sudden intensity of his gaze, and the way his large hands projected a graceful calm as he leaned towards her, elbows resting on his knees. It was a complete transition from the man ogling her not a minute before and Ziva didn't like that.

Making a face at her own distraction, Ziva closed her eyes briefly in order to recreate the earlier events in her head. The detectives waited patiently.

Ziva started at the beginning and worked her way through her story. She had already given a rundown of events to the first officers on the scene, but knew this statement would be most helpful in the investigation. As she recounted each detail she remembered, which she knew had to be comparatively a lot, she kept her voice even and gaze measured between each detective. She needed their reactions to guide the telling of her story—did she say too much? Were they suspicious? Did they understand? Ziva wasn't stupid; she knew the story of a piano teacher confronting an armed burglar was going to make the rounds of Metro PD water coolers. She just wanted to be sure it didn't make the evening news.

Perhaps she should have called her father after all. Or a lawyer.

Walker showed little response to her words. His face held a steady look of interest, but no judgment or other discernable emotion. DiNozzo, however, was not so blank. Though his expression was lively, it was hard to read: was the flickering in his eyes suspicion or impression? Was that furrow in his brow one of sympathy or pity? Midway through her report, she realized she actually wanted to know what he was thinking, which was silly, absurd, and immaterial. She focused her gaze on the phone recording her conversation to squash those thoughts.

"The paramedics cleared you?" DiNozzo's first follow-up question after she'd finished wasn't exactly textbook.

"I signed a release. I am fine," Ziva answered, giving only a brief consideration to the apprehension in his eyes.

"Dr. David," Walker continued, giving a side look to his partner. "You'll understand that our obvious question is _why_. Why didn't you hit the alarm and run?"

Ziva was careful to remain neutral in her response. "Because that is not what I was trained to do."

Their eyebrows went up. All four of them.

"And what were you trained to do?" DiNozzo's tone was irritatingly mocking.

"I am from Israel. I served in the IDF for many years." Ziva looked between the men, daring either to argue her credentials.

The detectives shared a look, but seemed appeased.

Ziva narrowed her gaze. If they weren't going to press further, well, she had some questions of her own. At least she didn't seem to be on the suspect list yet.

"What sort of burglar breaks into a home just before nightfall? When the house is clearly occupied?" The questions fell from her lips, quicker than any of the details of her story had, "what sort of burglar engages in hand to hand combat? Why a team of detectives and all the cavalry if this is just a random robbery?"

Walker looked defeated; Tony, impressed. Ziva folded her arms across her chest to wait for a response.

"It wasn't just a robbery," DiNozzo began. He ignored the warning look from his partner, shrugging at the silent man. "What? She'll find out anyway," he tossed in Walker's direction before turning back to Ziva. "A security patrol officer from the university was killed on his rounds tonight, just outside the house. Single gunshot to the head. Looks like he interrupted the gunman just before he broke in, probably caught him lurking in the alley. The patrol officer didn't even have a chance to radio it in. Our suspect shot him and stuffed him in the trunk of the patrol car before breaking into this house."

"Oh," Ziva looked down at the rug. A man had been killed here tonight. In Jenny's comfortable, inviting house, in Ziva's sanctuary. She pursed her lips, wrung her hands. "And I let him get away. I could've…" She second-guessed her approach to the attacker. If she had just pushed a little harder, she would've had him. She let him off easy. She wasn't going for the kill. Why hadn't she gone for the kill? That was her training! "I had a better shot but I thought… I thought it was just…"

The stab of guilt she felt was unexpected and deep- no, not guilt, _failure_. She hadn't done her best, had ignored her previous training, and now a man was dead because of it. A man who did not deserve to die. And the guilty party ran free, unpunished.

She counted her breath. Inhale, two, three. Exhale, two, three.

No. That wasn't her anymore. She gave up that life. Killing was no longer in her job description, nor was vengeance. She would not be pulled back into the world that had cost her so much. She wouldn't. That wasn't her anymore.

Whatever the detectives said to excuse her or console her, she did not hear. Instead, she focused on her breathing and the soft, curved lines of the nude woman on the wall. There was a card handed to her by Walker and, quickly after, another from DiNozzo. Somewhere in there, she promised to call if she remembered more or maybe it was the men invoking the promise from her.

Ziva didn't shift her gaze from the artwork, even when the detectives excused themselves. Walker offered to have one of the officers drive her home. She refused. After all, she was fine. She was always fine.

And this was all just a terrible coincidence.

* * *

Tony drained his third coffee of the night. It was now two in the morning, seven hours past the official end of his shift. Their shift started up again in a few hours but they had just recently finished up processing the scene and getting their initial interviews written up. Campbell ran a tight ship; he wanted paperwork all neat and tidy before calling it a night. True, Tony saw the logic behind it—having all files up to date made it easier for the guys on the next shift to reference active cases as they came on duty. Still, homicides never seemed to happen at the top of a shift, which led to many nights spent hunched over his computer, guzzling the sewage that passed for coffee, and hoping for a budget break that would lead to the extra hours actually being authorized as overtime.

And to think, he'd left behind a potentially illustrious career at a federal agency for all of this. The perks were just too good to pass up.

"Just got background on Shepard." Walker collapsed into his desk chair, sending it rolling and bumping into his desk. He tossed a manila folder at Tony.

"Lay it on me," Tony said, scanning the reports Nathan had gathered. His eyes were burning so actually reading with comprehension wasn't his best option at this point.

"Eh. Nothing too different than what she told us. We have a few angles to work—the art collection in that home is worth a not so insignificant amount, she's got some family money laying around in various investments. She's a regular on the academic charity circuit, with a few hot button issues in there. She's on the board of an organization that helps young women who are victims of domestic sex trafficking. Something called North Star. There's also a group that helps formerly incarcerated women get on their feet again."

Tony considered this. "Sex trafficking sounds more promising."

"Agreed," Walker yawned. "Shepard also seems to travel quite a bit, various speaking engagements around the country, usually on issues of sex trade. Apparently, she's a real advocate for policy change."

"And what about David?" He concentrated on keeping his face neutral. Only because he was pretty sure he'd tipped his hand before. He'd been expecting a crusty old lady and instead encountered an unexpectedly feisty, stunning woman who apparently had the ability to kick ass. Tony was only a lowly hot-blooded male, how could he feel neutral about such a package? And Walker was apparently a sorority girl in another life, ferreting out any remote attraction Tony had for the opposite sex, trying to push him off onto every pretty girl Tony smiled at. Which would be fine if Walker's endgame wasn't domestic bliss for his partner.

Nathan smirked. "David? The sort of homely professor?"

"Homely?!" Tony couldn't help the knee jerk reaction; he was tired. "She was gorgeous!"

"Ha!" Walker gloated. "I knew it. I could see you drooling from across the room. Maybe she'll give you a _private lesson_?"

Tony's mouth dropped open. "Wow, Walks. With game like that, it's a wonder you don't have a few ladies on the side." Honestly, he often wondered how Walker ever seemed cool enough for Tish to marry.

"Right. Like I could handle another woman in my life." Nathan shook his head, toying with a pen in the corner of his mouth as he neatly stacked up his completed paperwork. "I'm drowning in glitter and barrettes."

Giving Nathan's response a look of approval, Tony went back to his computer. His initial research (mostly Google) hadn't turned much up on David, just a vitae, a few syllabi, and several academic articles that made his eyes glaze over. She'd become an American citizen in the previous year and wasted no time in racking up traffic tickets. The good doctor was apparently a menace on the road, but nothing more remarkable than that.

"I got a few calls into ICE, the FBI, and Homeland…anyone who might have more information on her IDF service and history in Israel." Walker began shutting down his computer. "Should know more in the morning."

"In ah…." Tony glanced at his watch. "Five hours?"

Walker just laughed. "Yeah. Five hours. We're going to blow this wide open." The older man pulled on his coat. "I'm going to go crawl into bed with my wife for a few hours. Do me a favor and find somewhere else to sleep other than your desk?"

"Sure thing, partner," DiNozzo pointedly ignored his superior officer. He pulled the neck pillow out from his desk that he'd taken to using when crashing at the office.

"At least find your way to the locker room showers in the morning, man! I'm not working next to your ripe ass all day long." Nathan gave his bald head a shake.

Making himself comfortable, Tony took one last glance up at his partner. "Nathan."

Walker turned, resigned expression on his face because he probably knew where this was going. They got it each like that.

"The trafficking angle, the professional… Do you think they were coming after the kid?"

Walker just pointed a finger at DiNozzo. "Five hours. Wide open."

"You bet," Tony yawned, shutting down his own computer for the night. "Kiss your girls for me."

"Uh huh. Don't get too cozy with that stapler now."


	3. Chapter 2

**AN: **Thank you so much for all the kind reviews! It keeps me excited and motivated, so it's much appreciated. I am trying to go through and respond to any questions so hang tight! I apologize for the delay in updating. I went out of town last weekend and have had zero time to sit down to my computer to edit. As a bonus, my goal is to update twice next weekend since I don't want to leave you hanging too much! So...enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 2 **

_Tuesday - Wednesday_

Tuesdays were Ziva's least favorite day. Three hours of her usual class sections, then office hours spent teaching sophomores how to use commas properly, and then another three hours of a graduate level course. It was a marathon day that left little time for her research, grading papers, or food. For most of the day, she had appreciated her busy schedule; there was little time to think about armed intruders or dead security officers while lecturing on the social significance of Allende's works. But here, in this measly forty-five minute dinner break she had before her next lecture, she found her mind wandering rather than preparing for her lesson.

Ziva stared at the phone. In this minute, like it had for the previous thirty minutes, it remained silent.

Instead, a sudden awareness passed over her body. Like every cell was standing at attention. Ziva glanced up. Every cell in her body did a twirl.

"Detective DiNozzo."

The detective leaned in her doorway like he knew he looked good. And, dammit, he did. His designer suit was crumpled from a day of work, but it somehow looked more endearing than messy. She let her eyes wander over his frame, taking in choice bits along the way—his slightly tousled sandy hair, the curve of his lower lip, elegant fingers that never seemed to still.

Well, if she had to swerve for this apparent detour in her life, at least he would make the route more scenic.

"Tony is fine," he grinned, raising his eyebrow as if to request a verdict on her unabashed appraisal. A half smile twisted her lips and she leaned back in her chair, opening her shoulders and elongating her neck so that she gave him a good view of her chest. Let him figure that out.

"Tony," she tested and liked the way the syllables rolled off her tongue. In a moment of weakness, she conceded her own first name.

"Ziva," he drawled out with a grin. "May I?" He gestured to the chairs positioned in front of her desk. She nodded.

"What brings you here, Detective?" She smiled, rather liking her improved position of power, what with him in a ratty old university chair on the verge of collapse and her…in a slightly nicer chair. At least he was in her territory.

"I thought I told you to—

Her lips quirked suggestively. Flirting was a much better way to keep her mind off of the previous night. He stopped mid-sentence, cutely flustered, and waved a finger at her. She noticed that his eyes twinkled even in the harsh fluorescent light of her office. She contemplated the span of his chest- not quite muscular but still overwhelmingly masculine, like he could enfold her completely.

"Ziva," he tried again, really embracing the vowel sounds this time, and rested his elbows on his knees. His eyes were level with hers now and he held her gaze with a confidence that warmed her from the inside. He'd lost his tie at some point in the day, or perhaps never wore one, and had unbuttoned his shirt an extra button exposing an intriguing amount of chest hair. Strange. She normally wasn't attracted to hairy men, but she couldn't help the way her eyes caught on the sight.

Dragging her eyes away from the sexy law enforcement officer sitting in her office, she mentally ticked off how long it had been since she'd last had sex. There it was. Her first problem. Arrogant pretty boys were starting to look good to her. If she wasn't careful, she'd soon be requiring her students to read those awful vampire bondage books just to get herself a cheap thrill.

Tony cleared his throat. "I came here with a few more questions for you."

That snapped her back to reality quick enough. Her previously cloudy head cleared and focused.

"Yes. Okay." The stale air of her office settled over them, killing whatever electricity had sparked between them.

Tony studied her a long moment, a gaze that was more intellectual than flirtatious. She narrowed her eyes at him. "We have every law enforcement agency in the tri-state area on the lookout for our suspect. No word yet."

With a sigh, Ziva twisted her hair up into a bun. The detective's eyes darkened as he tracked the movement. Ziva quickly released her hands, letting her hair fall back down. She didn't want a nervous gesture to be construed as a sexual advance. That game was up. For now at least.

"I doubt you will find him. He seemed like a professional." Her tone was clipped. She averted her eyes from Tony's unwavering stare and shuffled some papers around on her desk.

"Deal with a lot of those in your days, Professor?" His hardest hitting question yet and he blew it off by pretending to inspect a paperweight on her desk.

Ziva just made a face at him. It didn't deter his explorations of her stuff. Either this one didn't pick up on subtle cues (tragic, for a detective) or he didn't really care that he was annoying her. She was betting on the latter, which irritated her even more. "I am sure you have my dossier by now, Tony."

"Dossier. Hmm. A word I don't think they teach you in ESL class." He was picking through her pen cup now, reading the inscription on one she'd procured from a conference. His eyes lit up when he discovered a pad of orange post-its, a few notes jotted in Hebrew on the top paper. He waved it around as evidence supporting his dig.

Ziva chuckled, not bothering to explain it was a reminder to email her Aunt Nettie the smoothie recipe she'd requested. "No. But English is my…" She ticked off her fingers. "Sixth language. Fluent language. I know several others conversationally."

Tony pulled out his phone and made a show of flipping through it. After a long minute, he flashed the screen at her. Her unflattering passport photo stared back at her.

"Says here that you served for eight years in the IDF. Caracal Division, honorable discharge, lieutenant rank." He clearly was not reading from the screen but had, in fact, memorized the information. That knowledge made Ziva shift uncomfortably in her seat.

"Yes," Ziva agreed, Tony's smirk drawing a matching one from her lips.

"That's an infantry combat battalion." There was a lift of awe in Tony's voice.

She raised her eyebrows, waiting for an actual question. "Yes."

He slid the phone back into his pocket. A slight pout formed on his lips. "You served eight years. Most women serve two."

"I am not most women," Ziva dropped her voice an octave. She folded her arms across on her desk. Tony mirrored her movements, carelessly moving aside the office supplies in his path so he could lean forward. She held his gaze as his head dipped down a little, keeping them eye-to-eye, arms mere inches apart though the desk remained between them.

"What I want to know is how a girl goes from guns and grenades to Gertrude Stein?" Tony's voice was low now, something just above a whisper, and carried a tone that was undeniably flirty but still had a hard edge to it. Heat flared in her body as a result or maybe it was the way his mouth curled with each word he said, giving her flashes of his teeth and tongue. She bit down on her lip.

"I prefer Naomi Wolf, really," she tossed back and her words sounded much huskier than she intended.

"_The Beauty Myth_. I've read that one. Bonus points for alliteration?" His eyes lit up and from her close perspective, she found herself lost in the sparkling blue-green depths. He waited for her reaction, knowing he would get one with that reference; Ziva tried not to laugh.

"What is your point, Detective?" And now she was purring. This was out of hand. Her original intention was just to flirt with him a bit, gain the upper hand in this dynamic, and be on her way. But something about the way his eyes painted over her face, taking her in, intoxicated her and she was having a hard time finding her footing again.

It'd really been too long since she'd been laid. Had a date, even. Verbal foreplay in her stuffy office across her half-broken desk was starting to seem sexy.

Online dating. Jenny had suggested it, but Ziva had shot it down. Clearly, that was a mistake.

"For someone recently granted American citizenship, your file is awfully thin." His look was pointed as he leaned back in his chair, leaving Ziva exposed and vulnerable. Her face burned.

"You are questioning my citizenship?" Her tone left no question of a fight.

Tony held his hands up in surrender. "No. No, not at all." He gave her an aw-shucks look that she'd seen on every politician's face she'd ever met. Or assassinated. "I am just trying to figure out what a professional hit man wants with a six year-old. And how it came to be that a trained solider was there to protect her."

"Luck, I suppose," Ziva replied tightly. He looked a little defeated at the sudden coldness in her demeanor. Good.

Rapping his knuckles on her desk, DiNozzo waited until he had her attention and when he did he held it, reading her, waiting for her to give up her secrets. All the brightness in his face had dimmed now, leaving no question that he wouldn't be so easily deterred. She felt the sheer power of his presence, a sort of dark fervor she was accustomed to working with in her past life; how that lurked beneath his distinctly American, boyish confidence was something that both exasperated and intrigued her.

After a long moment, he pulled back, all intensity gone. "Something tells me that you're not a strong believer in luck. And, for the record, neither am I. We need to find this guy, Ziva."

Waiting a beat, Ziva acknowledged his careful word choice, one that placed them on the same team. For now. She pursed her lips. "You think he was after Emma?"

"We found his car. Looked like he meant to abduct her." Tony studied her reaction before continuing. "There were supplies in the trunk—toys, clothes, food. Nothing that clued us in as to his motivation or plan, but enough that we know the goal was to take Emma."

Ziva closed her eyes. "And this has something to do with me? My past?" A parade of memories flooded Ziva's mind. Each one more terrible to contemplate than the last, none of which pointed to the abduction of a child who'd only just been born when Ziva had left her life in Israel behind.

Tony seemed to sense her turmoil and used that soft voice again. "No. I don't know. We're checking every angle." Tony paused, the inevitable follow-up question broadcast on his face seconds before asking it. "Is there something in your past we need to know about?"

"No…" Ziva struggled for an answer, tried to pull all the pieces together. "Jenny is a close friend. I met her at a lecture years ago. She convinced me to go back to school. She was one of my thesis advisors. She hired me on. She…" Ziva did not want to elaborate. "Sometimes I give Emma piano lessons. She is a sweet girl. And after everything Jenny did for me…" Ziva trailed off, unsure of what else to say without divulging the secrets she was sworn to keep. "I am not even there consistently!"

Tony's eyes were sympathetic. "I know, Ziva. You're not a suspect. Monday evenings, a teenage girl from down the street usually comes over to babysit Emma. That's what our perp planned on. Dr. Shepard canceled her when you offered to come for the lesson. Maybe it _was_ lucky you were there. Hell, it's your trail of blood that led us to the car."

"My trail of blood." Ziva snorted at the irony of it.

Tony gave her reaction a concerned look. "Jenny wasn't completely forthcoming with us, Ziva. I think she might not be telling us all that she knows."

At that, all of Ziva's uncertainty channeled to anger. She looked up at Tony with hard eyes. "If you're suggesting Jenny had anything to do with this... Jenny loves Emma. She would never…"

Tony shook his head. "I'm not saying it was intentional."

"Jenny would not lie to you," Ziva said firmly, her hand slicing the air for emphasis. "Not if it meant finding out who killed an innocent man and tried to kidnap her daughter."

Tony stood up; her argument didn't seem to penetrate. "I know you have class in a minute and I don't want to keep you. I'm not suggesting Jenny knows any more than she's telling us. It's just a gut feeling. That there's something she's not seeing. You're her friend and, whatever your past life was, I think you're trained to see more. If you think of anything else that can help, anything at all…"

With that, he dropped another of his cards on her desk and waved goodbye. Ziva ignored it and turned her gaze to the phone. Why hadn't Eli called her yet?

* * *

_Wednesday_

"Did you get anything from the pretty professor?" Nathan's first words of the day to his partner were void of any actual greeting.

Tony smirked as he plopped down at his desk, but said nothing.

"No, really, D," Walker mumbled through a mouth full of donut crumbs. "That woman knows how to handle a man. Tell me she at least tied you up a little bit?"

"Ha ha," Tony broke, giving his partner his saddest excuse for a laugh. He shook off his jacket, hung it on his chair, and then began to power up his computer. He had to give the monitor a slap to the side to wake it to life. "No. I did rattle her cage, though. I'll bet you she's calling me by the end of the day with more on Shepard. Ziva wants to believe Shepard is her noble hero, but she's also too suspicious not to dig a little deeper."

Walker's eyebrows shot up. He lost interest in his breakfast, dropping a half-eaten donut unceremoniously onto his desk. "_Ziva_? My, my, this is moving quickly. Need I report to our good lieutenant that you're fraternizing with a witness?"

"It worked for Harrison Ford, did it not?" Tony searched the cube for signs of more donuts. Surely his partner wouldn't be so cruel as to not bring some for the rest of the class?

Nathan made a face. He tended to miss out on about half of Tony's movie references. "That the one with the one-armed man?"

"No! No! That's _The Fugitive_. I'm talking about _Witness_. It's the one with Kelly McGillis and the Amish." Tony's frustration with his partner's pop culture ineptitude as well as the apparent lack of sugary breakfast treats for him meant the words came out a few notches higher on than anger scale than they had any right to.

Walker just watched DiNozzo pout in his chair, his words of reply heavy with disdain. "And what black man do you know has watched a movie about the Amish?"

"It's a classic!"

"Kelly McGillis? She's the flashdancer?" Nathan pretended to think it over, stuffing the rest of his donut in his mouth.

"No," Tony whined, "That's Jennifer Beals and—

Walker just started laughing. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a greasy bag. He threw it at his partner. "You're too easy sometimes, DiNozzo."

Any retort Tony could formulate was lost in a haze of a sugar-high by proxy. Opening the bag, he found two of his favorite cream-filled delicacies and any grumpiness he'd been feeling melted away.

"But the good news is, while you were out flirting with the witness last night, I got a lead on North Star. Your special lady friend at the FBI is now heading up a task force on domestic sex trafficking." Nathan had waited until Tony had his mouth full of donut to deliver the blow.

"Nope!" Tony's jaw dropped open; his appetite fled. He stuffed what was left of his donut back in the bag, making a face at his messy fingers.

"C'mon, D, it's not that bad," Walker gloated, giggling like a schoolgirl to boot.

"Not that bad? We slept together once. Once! Five years ago. And she always thinks I'm trying to get into her pants again. Never mind that she's married." Agent Caitlin Todd. Kate. Former Secret Service agent, now consummate FBI G-Woman. It was agents like her that sent him running back to the police department. Sure, Metro, like every other city he'd worked for, was filled with its share of brownnosers, kiss-asses, and back-stabbers. All those people that were eager to get ahead and who did not care a lick about the true responsibility of the badge. As a fed, though, soullessness was standard operating procedure. Everyone was gunning for their big promotion, their next pay grade. Cases were nothing but headlines and statistics. And though Kate had all the markers of a great cop, she also thrived on the politics of the FBI, which never failed to piss Tony off when their cases intersected. He scowled at the thought of her trying to take this one out from under his nose.

Nathan was calmly watching Tony work himself up into a frenzy, sipping on his coffee like he had all the time in the world. "Have I told you lately how much I love this case?"

DiNozzo shot his partner a death glare. "Hey, Walks, how did it go the other night with Tish? She okay with you missing the recital?"

Tony ended up with a face full of glazed donut.

* * *

In the bright afternoon light, Jenny Shepard's colonial looked as welcoming as any house on the block. Any other day Ziva walked to its door, she had a rare moment of envy, wishing she too had such a lovely home, the personification of the American Dream, filled with a family of her own. Of course, true to form, that dream had proved nothing but a nightmare in disguise. And now a trail of blood dotted the cobblestone walkway.

How had Tony put it? Her trail of blood? Yes. That sounded about right.

Before she could knock, the door swung open.

"Ziva!" Out ran Jenny Shepard, confronting her with a hug on the front porch.

"Jenny," she greeted, smothered by her friend.

"I saw you walk up," Jenny explained ushering her into the house. "I'm glad you stopped by. I've been meaning to call but it's just been—

"Stressful?" Ziva supplied. In short order, she found herself in Jenny's kitchen, glass of white wine in hand. Nevermind it was barely after lunch. "I called your office and was told you had taken a sick day."

Jenny nodded. "I needed some time to get the house back in order. The contractor was over first thing repairing the…" Jenny paled.

"Bullet hole?" Ziva winced. "I am very sorry."

"Sorry?" Jenny seemed surprised, her blue eyes flashing in the light. "Ziva! You saved my daughter's life!"

"I did not save Officer Daniels' life," Ziva said, thinking of the security patrol just doing his job and ending up murdered.

"No," Jenny touched the cross that hung on her neck. "But that was not your fault."

"Do you think…do you know _why_?" Ziva didn't want to feed any theories to Jenny yet. But she wanted to know what the woman might be thinking.

Shaking her head sadly, Jenny tipped the rest of her wine into her mouth. "I talked to that detective yesterday. The serious one. Detective Walker? He was asking me a lot about North Star, but I don't… I don't know how it could possibly have anything to do with…"

"Someone sent that man to kidnap Emma, Jen," Ziva leveled with her friend. For someone so smart, sometimes she could be very obtuse. "He knew you are usually gone Monday evenings and that there is only a teenage girl watching Emma. He was not expecting a fight."

"I usually have a meeting with our doctoral candidates." Jenny grabbed a sponge and started scrubbing the countertops. The normally put-together woman was wearing a ragged grey sweatshirt and yoga pants, her hair frazzled. "But I canceled because we had an emergency meeting for North Star."

Ziva frowned. That name again. "What about?"

Jenny sighed, pausing in her cleaning. "The board is split on the direction of the non-profit. Some, like me, think we should take a more active role in extraction, rehabilitation, and advocacy. Others believe we should stick with policy. My subcommittee was able to arrange a meeting with some members of a new FBI task force we'd joined. We were hoping to tie our mission in with theirs, to maximize our resources."

"How did the meeting go?"

Rolling her eyes, Jenny moved onto the countertop. Ziva noted that the knife set was missing completely. "It didn't. Our contact was running late and then I got the call from the alarm company. I came home right away. The two other geniuses on the committee canceled the meeting. They knew they couldn't handle it without me there."

Ziva grinned at Jenny's hubris. Still, this all felt far too coincidental. Like Tony had said, her gut was burning. She pushed that feeling aside for now, attempting to focus on more important things. "How is Emma, Jen?"

Pausing in her obsessive cleaning, the woman smiled. "Good. Coping. She's Emma. I told her she could stay home from school today but she didn't want to… She was excited to talk to the school social worker."

Laughing, Ziva began to help her friend, making herself useful with a broom. "Sounds like Emma."

"Yeah," Jenny sighed, pulling a mop from the cupboard. "I think she'll be okay. Lin is going to take her out of town for a bit. He's worried; of course, we all are. I can't imagine sleeping. But he thinks it will be good for Emma, to get some fresh air and spend time with her dad."

"Lucky girl," Ziva said, not without wistfulness in her voice. "Lin is a good man."

"Yes," Jenny agreed. She tried to push some hair back from her face with a few bobby pins.

"You should have married him, you know." Ziva bit back a smile, knowing what sort of response a comment like that would get. Still, there were few men in this world that she actually thought of as honest and Lin was one of them. He was wonderful with Emma and had a warm, often silly, sense of humor, which put Ziva at ease.

Jenny narrowed her eyes at Ziva. "And what kind of feminist would I be if I married a man just because he knocked me up?"

Ziva winked, pausing dramatically in her sweeping of the kitchen floor. "The kind who found herself a decent man willing to be a father?"

Jenny tsked and began reorganizing the cookbooks lined up on the countertop. "It takes more than that, Ziva."

"I know," Ziva conceded. She thought back to the parade of disasters termed her love life. "But it seems like it should not have to be more complicated than that."

Jenny shrugged. "Actually, our situation works out best for all involved. Franklin is my life partner. It just so happens we live in separate places and only have sex occasionally. We never fight and Emma gets two equally involved parents."

Ziva squished up her nose. That was far from ideal in her mind, though she respected that it worked for the Shepard family. "How very modern of you."

Hand on her hip, Jenny smirked at Ziva. This was how Ziva knew to brace herself for a zinger. "Speaking of fathers, has Eli David sent his guards in yet?"

Ziva winced. "No. I have not heard a word from him yet."

"Perhaps he's finally gotten the hint that you don't want him meddling?" Jenny looked up at Ziva approvingly. Ziva smiled back at her. More than anyone, Jenny understood the often tenuous relationship Ziva had with her father. She understood that though Eli had led Ziva down some truly dark paths, had led her to make some choices Ziva would regret forever, she could never truly hate him. He was her father. The degree to which she wanted him involved in her life, though, was constantly being negotiated.

"Perhaps." Ziva finished sweeping the floor and stored the broom away. "More than likely he will find a way to insert himself in the situation and make this even more complicated."

Maybe she was seeing things, but Ziva swore Jenny looked quite uncomfortable at that. She hid it well, though, and came back with a broad smile, which she shone on Ziva. "And how do you think the great Eli would fare against those two good-lucking detectives? They don't seem like they'd be so easily steam-rolled by his antics."

"I would not know," Ziva quickly replied. She knew Jenny was using a diversion tactic, trying to steer the conversation towards girl talk. Normally, she'd be fine with that but the mention of the detectives naturally made her picture Tony, leaning in her doorway like some sort of grand prize, and that made her uncomfortable for reasons she did not want to consider at this moment.

Employing her own diversion tactic, Ziva stored the broom away and sat at the table, nursing her glass of wine. Jenny didn't notice. She began going over the newly swept floor with a mop.

Jenny paused midway through her task, looking up at Ziva with sudden alarm. "Do you think they know? About your past?"

Tensing, Ziva shrugged. "No. I am not sure what they could find. Tony is suspicious though."

"Tony…?" Jenny fought back a smile but failed miserably.

With a grimace, Ziva tried to cover her tell. "Detective DiNozzo, I mean. He came to talk to me."

"He was adorable," Jenny pointed out. She finished her pass across the floor and leaned the mop against the wall. Careful not to step too much on the clean floor, she found her way to Ziva.

"I suppose," Ziva hedged. "If you like that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

Rolling her eyes, Ziva made room at the table for Jenny to sit with her. "Arrogant. Conceited. A typical American brute who thinks he is Jack Wayne."

"_John_ Wayne," Jenny corrected with a knowing grin. Ziva bristled. Like remembering the name of an old movie star was really on her list of priorities. "And it sounds like he's made an impression on you."

Ziva bit a cuticle. "Yes. An impression that American police are incompetent and they will never find the man that killed that poor security officer and tried to harm your daughter."

Jenny's look suggested she saw past Ziva's flimsy and unsupported claims. She didn't push, however, and instead let out a yawn.

Whatever strange feeling that came over her whenever DiNozzo was mentioned passed. In its place, sympathy for her friend washed over Ziva, which she let show with a concerned frown. Jenny waved her off.

"Now that this place is organized again, I might try to lay down for a bit. I haven't slept much lately."

Nodding, Ziva gathered up her belongings. "It is fine. I have class in an hour." And a phone call to make, she added silently. Walking over to her friend, she gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Shalom, Jen."

Pulling back, Jenny grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "Shalom, Ziva."

As she left, Ziva gave one last glance to the newly clean kitchen. She tried to impress on her memory all the little things she loved about it—the big windows in the breakfast nook letting in so much light, Emma's glittery paintings adorning the walls, the bowl of fresh fruit always filled on the countertop. She pictured lazy Sunday mornings and cozy evening dinners.

And yet, the fading bruise on her temple throbbed as she stepped outside into the afternoon sun. She closed her eyes and all she could see was the black eyes of her attacker; she could feel the familiar weight of a knife in her hand as she used it to her advantage.

Jenny seemed to want nothing but to reclaim her peaceful life.

Ziva wanted revenge.

* * *

(Side note: I always use this site's line breaks since anything I put in my own Word doc gets lost when I upload here. Are they showing up for everyone? I checked on my phone recently and they weren't...so if anyone has other suggestions, let me know! I would hate for wonky formatting to annoy you, dear readers!)


	4. Chapter 3

Once again, thank you for all the reviews and favorites. I'm glad that some of you are enjoying this! More to come soon!

* * *

_Chapter 3_

_Wednesday, continued_

"Sorry, guys, I just don't see how North Star would have any involvement in this," Kate Todd shook her impeccably coiffed hair. Tony was willing to bet it was cut at one of the premiere salons in the city that specialized in the no-nonsense G-woman style. No-nonsense G-woman pretty much described Kate in a nutshell.

"C'mon, Kate," Tony whined. "This reeks of a professional hit! And the fact they were going after the kid? It makes sense that it would be tied to the organization that deals in the rescuing of exploited girls!"

Nathan, as always, was more levelheaded. "Look, we don't have any evidence this is linked to North Star at this point. But we know Shepard is the vocal face of the organization. Any controversial stance they've taken has her name all over it. Maybe she ticked off the wrong people?"

Kate seemed to consider this. Leaning back on the desk, she looked between the two men and pursed her lips. "Okay. Fine. I'll look into it. But my task force is on the brink of pushing through some important legislation for us. We can't have our agenda tarnished by one radical voice."

"So…. as usual, justice for a murdered officer and near-kidnapping and god knows what else of a little girl play second fiddle to a political agenda?"

Kate shot Tony a withering glare. "No. Justice for the rent-a-cop and the B&E are blips on the radar when compared to the sweeping changes this legislation could provide. More manpower, greater awareness, stricter sentences, victim support—_that_ is more important than the two victims here."

Shifting uncomfortably, Walker frowned. "Rent-a-cop?"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Kate sighed. "Yeah. That was wrong. I should not have said that."

"No, you shouldn't have," Nathan accepted the apology. Tony shot Kate a look of understanding. Yes, she was a brown-nosing ballbuster, but she wasn't heartless. They all said things like that from time to time. Allowances had to be made.

"We need something to go on here, Kate." Tony gave her his softest eyes, trying to appeal to the small part of her that had been attracted to him at some point.

With a graceful hand, Kate searched the air. "Off the top of my head, Shepard's most controversial position is with regards to victim extraction. We're not talking large-scale raids here, as is most common when trafficking in illegal immigrants. Domestic sex trafficking involves a more complex relationship. Many of these girls are trafficked before they even know what happened. They are not held hostage by any physical means, typically. They are kept in the life through deep manipulation and fear. Oftentimes they are too scared or brainwashed to leave. Which makes catching these guys and prosecuting them problematic, to say the least."

Nathan frowned. "And Shepard wants to just pull them out?"

Kate nodded. "Most nonprofits come in on the backend—victim rehabilitation, therapy, groups homes, financial support, that sort of thing. Shepard is pushing for more aggressive legislation that would mandate time in group homes for these girls at the first sign of abuse—pull 'em out, just get them away from their abusers, and with time you might undo the mess and get them to turn against their captors."

"Well, yeah," Tony reasoned, tapping a pen against his lips, "but the problem with that is enforcing it. You got a girl not willing to talk. You can't just pull her out of a situation you think might be bad."

"Exactly," Kate agreed. "A good idea in theory. Absolutely not enforceable by our agencies in most cases."

"Still," Waters sat on the table. "Doesn't seem like that is likely to piss anyone off to a degree that warrants such a personal attack on Shepard."

"Here's where you'll have to do some more digging—my feeling is, based on some of the conversations we've had, Shepard might be beyond policy." Kate paused, considered her wording. "No one's given me specific details, and I didn't press, but I got the impression Shepard maybe has enacted some of these policies on her own. She has certainly taken a very close interest in some of the former victims involved with the organization."

There was a long moment where all three investigators looked at each other with an "_oh shit"_ look. Nathan let out a low groan that perfectly expressed all their frustration, that doomsday feeling of just how deep this rabbit hole could go. It certainly wouldn't be an open and shut case, unfortunately.

Tony's phone rang then, giving a jolt of urgency to their wallowing. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. He didn't recognize the number. He excused himself from the two and stepped outside the cube. "Anthony DiNozzo."

"Anthony?" A voice smiled over the phone. "This is Ziva David."

"Ah, yes. The professor." He couldn't help but smile back. Talk about a breath of fresh air. It was enough to chase away whatever annoyance he'd just been experiencing. Hearing just her voice, Tony was struck by the richness of its tone, the sexiness of her accent. He could also sense her eye roll across the line, which made his grin widen. "What can I do for you? Please say you're offering me a date."

She laughed, a throaty, musical sound. "No. However, I did call to inform you of a conversation I had with Jenny Shepard."

Tony's heart sped up at the potential lead. "Yes? Hey, wait, I'm going to put you on speaker." He stepped back into the cube, gesturing to his colleagues to listen as Ziva filled them in.

"And that's it? She didn't say anything else about North Star?" Waters asked after Ziva had recapped her meeting with their person of interest.

"No."

Tony shared a look with his teammates. It didn't add much to what they had, but the evidence was rapidly piling up against Shepard and North Star. "We appreciate the information, Ziva. We're looking more into it now."

"Good. Please keep me updated." The clipped, business-like cadence of her words made Tony grin. It made throwing her off her game an irresistible challenge. And he obviously had the now proven ability to get under her skin. She'd gone running straight to Shepard after their last meeting, hadn't she?

"Likewise. And if you are looking for a date this weekend…"

"I will find a man who does not eat his lunches from a vending machine." Her response was quick, cutting, and had his coworkers biting back snickers.

Tony scowled. "Hey! How did you—

But Ziva had hung up, leaving Tony to contemplate the plastic-flavored turkey sandwich he'd procured from the 3rd floor stairwell machine that sat half-eaten on his desk. Kate struggled to hold in her laughter.

In defiance, Tony took a bite of his sandwich. It tasted less good now. "What are you laughing it, Kate? From the sound of it, you're in the thick of it now. What people of yours was Shepard meeting with?"

"Shit," Kate said. Tony was pretty sure she'd been holding that in since Ziva first made the revelation. "I don't know."

"Better find out quick," Tony chided, polishing off his lunch, giddy with the idea that this investigation finally had some traction.

"Bite me, DiNozzo," Kate sassed as she gathered up her belongings.

"Eh. Not sure how your husband would feel about that. Aren't those Hill guys, the ones that aren't coke fiends, pretty uptight?" Tony laughed through the elbow in the gut he received. It was barely a tap. Walker just rolled his eyes and wandered off.

"You're such a teenager," Kate shook her head, nose in the air.

"Says the mature wit who just used 'bite me' and an elbow jab as comebacks," Tony taunted.

Kate added a middle finger to her list of insults, throwing it over her shoulder as she navigated her way out of the Homicide bullpen. It was a lovely sight to behold.

"Hey! You slept with me!" Tony couldn't resist yelling out. He ignored the various grunts and grumbles from the other detectives in hearing distance.

"I was drunk," she tossed back, even louder, earning some chuckles from the peanut gallery and the upper hand.

Tony shrugged. True. But so was he. Still, he let her have the last words and what little remained of their dignity. He got enough grief from the other guys about his bed-hopping ways. Most of the other detectives in the division were married. And though a few of the guys seemed to envy his ability to go home with whomever he chose, most of his coworkers were far too settled in family life to do more than humorously reminisce about their single days. The feds were a younger, more fast-paced group. After-hours relationships had just as much significance as those forged around the water cooler. It was one of the few things he missed about being a G-Man. He tossed the remainder of his lunch into the trash bin.

"You two have sure gotten a lot of mileage out of that one night stand," Walker's voice floated up from another cube where he was hiding out. Tony waited until his partner's head popped up from the cube next door.

With a crack of his neck, Tony sat down to his computer. "You would rather us talk religion or politics?"

Nathan pretended to consider it. "Fair point. Hey, I'm ordering from Clark's, want anything?"

"Yes. The usual. I'm starving!"

* * *

"Ziva David," she answered the phone.

"Shalom, Ziva."

"Abba." Ziva exhaled and leaned back in her chair. She dropped her pen on the desk and saved her latest work on the computer. "What is the occasion?" She smirked into the phone, knowing that would set him off.

"The occasion, my dear, is the investigation you've gotten yourself into." Eli David was speaking quietly into the phone, in English. That, coupled with the unknown number on her phone, suggested he was calling from the office. She did some mental math and determined it was far too late in Israel for him to be working.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?"

True to character, Eli completely ignored her question. "Tell me about this investigation."

"It is nothing, Abba. You need not be concerned."

"Be careful, Ziva. You have secrets to protect."

Ziva rolled her eyes. "This has nothing to do with me."

"American law enforcement do not take kindly to foreign operatives involved in their affairs."

"I am no longer a foreign operative," she gritted out in Hebrew. "And what would you have me do? Let that man take the child?" She assumed her father had already obtained whatever information he could about the case.

"No, Ziva," Eli's tone became more gentle. "You did what you had to do. You still have what it takes and it saddens me that your skills are being wasted as you gather dust at that university."

"Abba," Ziva warned, feeling a headache forming behind her eyes. Apparently they'd reached the guilt portion of the conversation. She knew the stereotype about Jewish mothers. Her own mother had died many years ago and was a sepia-toned memory at this point, so she couldn't personally attest to the truth of it. Eli, however, though lacking in most paternal instincts, seemed to have no shortage of ability to make her feel guilty for not continuing to align her life choices with his own.

"I am sending over a courier with the information I've gathered on your case and everyone involved."

Drumming her fingers on her desk, Ziva carefully formulated her response. "I am not an investigator. Perhaps you should forward your findings to the professionals. As you are apparently assisting with their investigation."

"Right," Eli chuckled. "Let them do their own job. This is opposition research. Full dossiers of everyone involved so you can protect yourself, Ziva."

"Protect myself against what?" Her jump to anger was quick. "I am not a suspect. They are not after me."

"Not an investigator, not a suspect… Tell me. What _are_ you, Ziva?" Judgment was heavy in Eli's voice. Ziva's entire body went hot.

"I have a life, Abba, one that makes me happy. I teach young adults to look at the world in a different way. I have friends. I do not spend my days perpetuating violence." There was no point arguing with him, really. He would never understand.

"You spent your days preserving the future of your people. Sacrificing for the greater good. A noble cause, bigger than either of us."

Ziva closed her eyes, fighting back the suddenly very present flood of memories. "Abba, _please_."

Eli was silent for a long moment. "You are stronger than this, Ziva. You let that man beat you. You let him take your life from you."

Silent tears ran down Ziva's face. "I am strong, Eli. Strong enough to know when to walk away and reclaim my life. It wasn't just Saleem and his men that took everything from me."

"You condemn me for sins that I am not sure I committed," Eli responded quickly, familiar with the dance of their argument. Ziva thought she knew better than to pursue it. Eli was more stubborn than her. No matter how many times she'd confronted him, no matter how many times she'd cried and begged him to understand how broken her life under him had made her, he refused to see it. Her therapists had called it a form of self-protection. Jenny had called it pig-headed asshole-ness. Either way, it meant they had yet to see eye to eye. That Eli had yet to understand just how empty her life in Israel had left her. And how full her life in American was becoming.

Ziva listened to her father's heavy breaths across the line, hardly seeming an ocean away. She refused to respond.

Finally, Eli sighed. Ziva heard someone in the background requesting his attention and, of course, he responded that he'd be there shortly.

"Ziva, I must—

"Of course," she snipped. "You must."

"Please be aware: this friend of yours, Jennifer. She is tangling herself up with some men with international ties. Men we have files on."

Ziva sat up straighter, not expecting that turn in the conversation. "What?"

"It is generally not of my organization's concern, but I do support the work being done to stop these sex traffickers," Eli disclaimed, ever the diplomat. Ziva's stomach rolled. "It's deplorable, of course. But these are cunning, connected men. One woman alone cannot bring down such a beast."

As if on cue, well, most likely on cue, a courier poked his head into her office. Ziva gave the young man a tight smile and signed for the envelope.

A moment later, Eli confirmed that she'd received the documents.

"As you are well aware, yes." Ziva opened the envelope with the knife she kept secured under her desk, an overly effective letter opener, and pulled a stack of folders from inside.

"Good," Eli paused, "If you need anything else…"

"I know, Abba," Ziva replied with a soft voice. She was learning to receive whatever gifts her father had to offer. They would never be in the form of apology, acceptance, or understanding. But he was all she had left, after all. "Thank you."

"Be careful, Ziva." The call ended with a click. As much affection as she would ever get from Eli.

Ziva held her phone in her hand as her eyes took in the wealth of information provided. Surely she needed to call Detective DiNozzo. Her finger hesitated over the touchscreen. She wouldn't mind calling him. She had enjoyed their vaguely flirtatious interactions so far. But another part of her, the part that still would be ever grateful to Jenny for all that she had done, felt the need to protect her friend at all costs.

Pushing aside the notes she'd been compiling for her next lecture, Ziva began to spread out the files her father had sent. There were slim files on Nathan Walker and Andrew Daniels. Under those, she found a heftier folder on Anthony DiNozzo Jr. She paused at Tony's. She contemplated the thick file. It clearly held all she would ever want to know about the alluring detective. She tested its weight in her hands, wondered what could possibly be contained inside. From experience, she knew it could just be pages of illuminating but ultimately mundane information—academic transcripts, job applications, performance reviews. Or, it could tell her more than she ever wanted to know. All the bad decisions he'd made in his life. All the deep dark secrets of his family, his past. Without a doubt, that charming smile of his had gotten him in trouble more than once.

She thought back to her conversation with her father. She wondered what terrible things her own file would contain if someone could actually get past all the black lines.

Ziva made a face to no one in particular. She stacked Tony's file with Nathan's and shoved them both in the back of her filing cabinet.

She flopped back down in her desk chair. She ran her fingers over Jenny's file. An invasion of her friend's privacy, yes. But Jenny was hiding things. Things that put Emma's life in danger. Things that caused an innocent young man to die.

Her stomach clenched. She bit her lip.

Sometimes one had to keep in mind that her actions were helping the greater good, right? Isn't that what her father would say?

She opened the file.

* * *

_Thursday_

DiNozzo and Walker had returned to the colonial house that had become so familiar the last few days. They had scheduled another interview with Jenny Shepard. There had been a long debate between the partners on whether they should bring her down to the station or not but, in the end, it'd seemed best to try and talk to her on familiar ground, keep her defenses down, with the hope that she would share more.

"How is Emma?" Walker inquired, sipping at the coffee Jenny had provided. It certainly tasted better than the station rotgut they usually had to drink.

"Holding it together. Thank you for asking. Her father is taking her to his family's vacation home for a few days, just to keep her away from all of this." Jenny hadn't touched her own coffee. She ran a manicured finger over the mug handle as if she might grip it, but the impulse was fleeting. Aside from that tell of nervousness, Jenny looked otherwise put together—hair and makeup in place, expensive suit on. She was back to work at both the university and the nonprofits she worked with.

"Sounds like a good idea," Tony affirmed, earning a shaky smile from Jenny.

"You're here to ask me more questions." As she spoke, any anxiety she had seemed to melt away. This was a woman accustomed to running the conversation; showing any sort of weakness was unacceptable. Jenny leveled them each with a piercing stare.

"Yes. Our investigation has become focused on your involvement with North Star. It seems likely some of your work there may have pissed off the wrong people. That the death of Officer Daniels and the attempted kidnapping of your daughter was part of a retaliation plot." Tony was a fan of laying his cards on the table, seeing how his interviewee reacted. It never failed to stir things up a bit.

Jenny, for her part, remained stone-faced. "I see. Any idea who I might've rubbed the wrong way? I tend to speak my mind. I ruffle a lot of feathers."

"That's where we need your support, Dr. Shepard," Walker urged. Whereas Tony used his expression to convey irritation and skepticism, Nathan went for humble. Sometimes, it worked. People with power liked to flash it around. Sometimes all they needed was a good excuse. Like appeasing Walker's hangdog face.

Sitting back, Jenny took a deep breath. Tony's eyebrows went up. Surely, Jenny was smarter than that? "You understand much of the work we do with our survivors falls under confidentiality?"

Sniffing weakness, Tony held up a finger. "You are neither a therapist nor a lawyer. You have no legal obligation to keep details relevant to a criminal investigation confidential."

"I have a moral obligation," Jenny scoffed. "What limited information I have regarding the day to day workings of North Star was shared as professional courtesy. I'm not about to jeopardize the safety of my women or staff by disclosing it unnecessarily."

Tony couldn't help but roll his eyes. Sensing that his partner was about to explode with annoyance, Walker took over.

"We would just like to know if anything has ruffled _your_ feathers recently," Nathan said, his voice calm. Jenny visibly relaxed as she turned towards him. "You could save us a lot of legwork by pointing us in the right direction. The clock is ticking. In all likelihood, the man who did this was a hired pro and is long gone by now. We'll do our best to catch him. That said, whoever hired him is still out there too. And we cannot keep you or your daughter safe until we figure out who that is."

Tony swooped in the for the kill. "Special Agent Todd from the task force is a friend and she is pulling together cases you've been personally involved in that may have touched a nerve. We will get this information eventually."

Her gaze vacillating between them, Jenny swallowed. She touched a delicate hand to the cross on her neck. A touchstone, it seemed. "I'm the board president. I help shape the nonprofit's policies and agendas. On occasion, I throw rubber chicken dinners and answer phones. I'm not directly involved in any of the day-to-day. However, my name is public record, so perhaps someone is mistaken."

"No," Tony shook his head, almost appreciating Jenny's state of delusion. "This is personal."

"Dr. Shepard, are you sure there haven't been any suspicious phone calls? Strongly worded emails? Anything that felt off?" Walker continued down the nice cop route.

"I assure you, detectives, I would not withhold that information if I had it." Jenny smoothed her hands over her unwrinkled slacks and stood up.

Tony smiled up at her, all teeth and sarcasm. "Then you'd be willing to let us dig around a bit? You know, emails, calendars and the like?"

Leaning back on the sofa, Jenny demurred, offering up an icy grin of her own. "My calendar is kept by my administrative assistant. You can access that through her."

"Your personal calendar?"

She laughed. "My personal calendar is limited to ballet and soccer with the occasional play date. You can take that if you want. It's the one with all the stickers on it, hanging on the fridge."

Walker gave her a smile of understanding and stood up as well, understanding the interview had run its course. Tony remained seated. He wasn't done yet. "Your emails? Paperwork from North Star?"

"Is private. If you want that, you can get a court order," Jenny said curtly. She cleared her throat and gestured toward the door.

Tony looked up at her with wide eyes. "That won't be difficult."

"How nice for you."

Walker laughed, gesturing for Tony to follow him as he made his way toward the door. "All right, Dr. Shepard. If you think of anything else, please call."

"Certainly," she promised, winning smile back in place. As she ushered the men out, she added one last remark. "Though, gentlemen, when you do go hacking through my organization, please be discrete. The work we do… It's bigger than any of this."

Tony frowned, ready to push his way back into the house and start up their meandering discussion all over again. "A man is dead."

Walker nudged his partner. "Understood, ma'am."

With a nod and another feline smile, Jenny shut the door on them.

Turning to his partner, Tony made a face. "I do love a cooperative witness."

"Nah, I don't think she's hiding anything," Walker shook his head, snatching the keys DiNozzo tossed in the air. Tony sulked. "Not intentionally at least."

"Something's fishy though," Tony observed as he climbed into the passenger seat. He ran back through the interview in his mind, trying to catch something he might've missed. Jenny's professional demeanor wasn't surprising or unexpected. Still, the distance with which she seemed to hold herself from Monday's events was disconcerting. She had to be hiding something or protecting someone. There was no other reason for her to be so relaxed about the investigation. She was a mother whose child was threatened. The fact that she wasn't camped out in their bullpen awaiting answers was a big red flag.

"Oh yeah," Walker agreed as he started the car. "Let's go get that court order."

* * *

Ziva's lips were starting to hurt from the fake smile on her face. Nothing was worse than these alumni donor events. She'd debated skipping out on the night altogether and curling up in bed with a book and glass of wine. After her week so far, she was certain she deserved it. But she wasn't tenured and her department was generally underfunded and the first to face cuts during a budget crisis. She had to play nice.

When she'd first been appointed to a faculty position, she'd been excited by the prospect of mingling with other academics and donors. Ziva always liked meeting new people. After all, she was skilled in gaining trust and building rapport; it was never difficult for her to make a connection. She liked to hear other people's stories, and that happened a lot at these events. She liked to know how all these patrons and professors got from here to there, what twists and turns their life took. It was what had drawn her into literature studies to begin with—even though she studied fiction, she still related to the struggles of the protagonists she read. She appreciated their inner-monologue; it gave her insight into her own transformation, strength when she felt defeated. The characters were there as she slowly began to rebuild and repair her soul.

These events, at first, seemed a culmination of that. A chance to put on a little black dress and heels and mingle with others who had made it, too. Problem was, after a few loops around the room and not nearly enough complimentary wine; Ziva realized her expectations of these events were far too lofty. Fellow faculty were on schmooze auto-pilot, either completely burned out on networking or hoping to ass-kiss their way into a tenured position or to at least score a big donation for their department. Most of the alumni came back to flaunt their wealth and status, something they likely had all along. The most interesting conversation she'd had tonight was with the bartender.

Ziva found herself no longer searching for a conversation to edge her way into, but for a white-shirted waiter with a fresh tray of crab cakes. The crab cakes might actually be worth the four-inch heels.

Of course, standing between her and breaded-bliss was Jackson Ellis. Jackson (never Jack) believed himself to be God's gift to the Classics department. She'd been suckered into his trap at her first faculty event, losing a solid hour to him reciting Sappho in both English and Greek. With his long, perfectly unkempt salt and pepper hair, he was attractive to be sure, but his ego needed its own zip code. Seeing his wolfish grin directed her way, she felt inclined to give him a swift knee to the unmentionables, but he had pull with the Dean and Ziva was just a measly associate professor. One of the few downsides to her new career was how poorly the occasional violent outburst was received.

"Ziva!" Jackson waved, taking his sweet time in approaching her. She smiled her most standoffish smile and waited. She raised her eyebrow to signal her impatience when he stopped to flirt with a septuagenarian.

"Ziva, darling," he drawled as he finally found his way to her, pulling her in to kiss each cheek. "My favorite feminist."

"I bet you say that to all the women of my department," Ziva said in her most saccharine voice. She discretely put a foot of distance between herself and the lothario.

Jackson laughed. "Only the feisty ones. I do believe I owe you a drink?"

Keeping an icy smile on her face, Ziva pretended to think. "I actually do not think that you do."

Her mistake was playing hard to get. Jackson's green eyes flashed in interest as he leaned in closer. She tried not to wince at the heavy smell of whiskey on his breath. "I will gladly suffer the inconvenience then. Another glass of white?"

And then, blessedly, her phone buzzed in her clutch. She made a show of the intrusion, acting like it was highly inconvenient, and checked the number. Unknown. "Oh! I apologize. I have to take this call. Excuse me."

Before he could say anything in response, she hurried off. In a pinch, she could still run in stilettos.

"Ziva David," she answered as she made it out of the bustling room.

"Oh! Oh, thank God, Ziva…"

Frowning at the unfamiliar voice, Ziva stepped into a dark alcove and strained to hear. "Who is this?"

"It's…Maritza. My name is Maritza. Oh, thank God, thank God… Jenny said you would help," the voice, clearly a young female, broke into sobs now. Ziva closed her eyes, hoping this wasn't going where it felt like it was going. "Please, you have to help…She said if I couldn't reach her- you have to help me!" The last word hit a hysterical register.

Ziva's mind raced. "Calm down, Maritza. Take a deep breath."

The girl complied but then started talking quickly again. "Please! Hurry! I…I ran away but he… You have to come! I have no money, nowhere to go, please…"

The cocktail reception behind her faded to static. Ziva focused intently on the voice on the phone, trying to pick up on any clues, any bits of information that might be offered up. "Where are you?"

"A diner on the corner of 14th and Florida. Columbia Heights, I think. They let me use their phone."

"Okay, Maritza, I will be there as soon as I can. Are you safe? Were you followed?"

This seemed to escalate the girl's hysteria. "I… I… I don't think so. I don't know."

"All right. Good. You need to hang up the phone and go hide in the bathroom until I come for you, okay?" She assumed the pause meant the girl was nodding. "Good. Dangle tight and I will be there as soon as I can."

"Okay," Maritza whimpered, "Thank you, thank you…"

Ziva hung up her phone. Mentally, she pulled up the city grid and plotted out the fastest way to get to her target. To Maritza.

Dammit, what the hell did Jenny get her into?

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Sorry this was low on the Tiva, but there will be lots more next time. I promise. Let me know what you think! **


	5. Chapter 4

**Hello, friends! Sorry for the delay in posting when I promised an earlier update. I have two more weeks of work craziness but I anticipate sticking to a weekly posting. Thanks once again to all those who are reading! It's nice to know that even if there aren't quite as many of you out there as there once were...many of you are still here and reading! So...enjoy!**

_Chapter 4_

_Thursday, continued_

Twenty minutes later, Ziva was illegally parked in front of the diner Maritza identified. The neighborhood was largely deserted this time of night. Most businesses were closed and no foot traffic came through. She spent a minute taking stock of her surroundings—the diner, its exits, the flow of local traffic, all the cars parked nearby. Nothing seemed amiss, though going in blind like this meant she wasn't sure exactly what to anticipate. It wasn't the way to run a mission, but she'd learned long ago to be flexible and creative in times like this. She grabbed her keys and phone in her hand. She contemplated the knife in her glove box but had second thoughts upon glancing down at her ensemble. She had nowhere to hide a weapon and she was no longer in the habit of wearing a thigh sheath for her knife. She would have to settle for the pepper spray on her keychain and hope for the best. In and out.

Ziva entered the diner, flashed a tight smile at the lone waitress on duty, and made her way quickly and purposefully to where she assumed the bathrooms were located. The place was relatively empty; it seemed they were in the clear.

Knocking on the door, Ziva announced her presence before entering. What she saw when she entered the bathroom nearly broke her heart.

Maritza was young, very young, no more than twenty, and wearing a cocktail dress nicer than Ziva's. Still, the black strapless number was a little too loose and the girl looked awkward and uncomfortable in her towering heels, almost like she was playing dress-up. She was bent over the sink, dry-heaving. Whatever remained of her make-up was running in tracks down her face. All her weight seemed to be resting on her forearms, as if she was trying to climb into the porcelain basin and escape down the drain.

"Ziva?" She choked, eyes bleary with tears and withdrawal.

Ziva offered the girl a reassuring smile. "Yes, Maritza. I am Ziva. Are you ready to go?"

Maritza nodded, though nearly collapsed when she tried to move away from the sink. Ziva quickly went to support her. Maritza's slight body crumpled onto hers. The girl reeked of booze and cigarettes.

"All right," Ziva murmured, hefting her charge up to balance on her heels. When the girl's legs refused to remain locked and steady, Ziva helped Maritza remove her shoes. Maritza's balance seemed to improve on bare feet.

Ziva shoved the expensive heels into Maritza's hands. "Let's go."

They made an odd pair. Ziva, a put-together adult, guiding a girl who looked like she took a game of dress up a few steps too far. Ziva gave the waitress an apologetic look on their way out, ignoring the roll of her eyes.

They were almost safely to Ziva's car when she heard it: the unmistakable sound of a revving engine and screeching tires. They'd been spotted.

"Shit," Ziva cursed, turning to see the headlights of a dark sedan bearing down on them. Maritza whimpered and burrowed into her arms. The driver slammed on the brakes. A black Audi effectively blocked Ziva's car into its spot. The window rolled down.

"Yo, mija, get in the car!" A white male in his early twenties with a distinct air of wealth about him tried to act like a guy who'd just lost his date. Maritza huddled in closer to Ziva, tears rolling down her face.

Ziva spoke on the silent girl's behalf. "It appears your friend has had too much to drink. I am going to take her home."

"No, no, Maritza," the man's smile turned predatory. "Baby, you're coming home with me tonight. I got you."

"Fuck off, Matty," Maritza screamed with a sudden burst of brazen energy. She thrashed a bit in Ziva's grasp. Ziva tightened her grip on the young woman's shoulders; it was clear this Matty was nothing but bad news and she was not about to let the girl go back to him.

"Calm down," Ziva murmured to her charge, not wanting Maritza to further escalate the situation. "Let me handle this."

Ziva addressed Matty with a bright face. "I will be taking your friend home tonight. I would be happy to call the police to sort this out if we need to." She held up her phone.

Matty laughed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay, lady. Just mind your own fucking business and hand over my girlfriend."

_Lady_? Ziva's lips curled up in a devious grin of her own. "I believe she told you to fuck off, Matty."

Maritza stood straighter in her arms. A smile that was much too wide stretched across her face. "I did, _asshole_!"

Matty didn't seem to like that answer. Ziva internally cringed at the gun the man produced into view. He waved it around with no regard for their safety or his own. Ziva arranged her keys in her hand so she had her pepper spray handy. She didn't like the idea of spraying an armed man, but odds were he'd reflexively drop the gun. If not, he'd at least lose his clear shot at them.

"Maritza, get in the damn car. _Now_." The young man's words were slurred. His eyes were red-rimmed.

Ziva glanced between Maritza and Matty, trying to read the situation. Maritza had gained a newfound confidence in Ziva's presence. She made a show of slipping her heels back on. Matty clearly wasn't backing down, either. He flapped the gun in the window, tapping the barrel against the side of his car.

"Matty, this will not end well," Ziva promised, one hand up in surrender. "Please just move along and call your girlfriend in the morning."

"Like hell," Matty shouted. Ziva picked up on a few other male voices in the car, hidden in the backseat, egging him on. Ziva regretted not stopping home for the Jericho stashed under her mattress. She tried to look bored as Matty and Maritza screamed back and forth at one another, their insults vulgar and unspecific.

"Maritza, let's go back into the diner. We will call the police," Ziva urged the girl, betting these thugs wouldn't want to cause that big of a scene. But Maritza was still full of liquid courage and all wound up. A final obscenity screamed at Matty was his breaking point.

Crack.

Ziva watched in aggravation as the rear tire on her car deflated. Matty cackled and raised his weapon again. Maritza looked around frantically, starting towards the Audi but then changing her mind and stepping back. Matty met Ziva's eyes and Ziva saw a real darkness there, the type of abyss that was generally true evil abetted by illegal substances. She knew his kind. He wouldn't hesitate to shoot again. Dammit.

"Maritza, run," Ziva said quietly before grabbing the girl's arm and pulling her in the direction of a nearby alley. She was betting on Matty both hesitating to shoot and, hopefully, being a terrible shot. Dragging her charge along, Ziva demonstrated a low crouch-run that kept them covered by the cars parked on the street.

Another gunshot. Shattering glass. Maritza screamed.

"Go, Maritza. _Go_! To the alley!" Ziva pushed the girl in front of her, looking over her shoulder. The Audi did a screeching three-point turn and sped back in their direction. Maritza yelped as she tripped on a soggy box littering the alleyway. Ziva looked around for an escape. Spotting a gangway a few yards ahead, she urged Maritza to keep running. Matty blared the horn at them as the car raced up the alley, closing in on them. In the periphery of her vision, halogen lights burned bright behind them. He would gain on them in moments.

"Oh God. Oh no," Maritza cried, tripping again. Ziva swept in behind her and kept her on her feet. She practically pushed her down the gangway.

"Run! To the street! Get a cab!" Ziva yelled out directions to a girl who was definitely not in a mindset to follow them. Maritza scrabbled along the narrow passage between buildings, crying out each time she tripped and twisted her ankles in her heels. The concrete was uneven and strewn with debris. Ziva shoved Maritza along, ignoring her yelps when her skin caught on the jagged brick of the buildings. Ziva checked to see if their tail had caught up with them yet. They were clear. Luckily the gangway was short; they were coming up the side of the diner. Had Matty fired on them in that narrow passage, they would have been easy targets.

The two women practically fell onto the empty street. Ziva threw her hand up to flag down a cab before she even cleared the sidewalk. More luck was on her side as one pulled to the curb almost immediately. She flung open the door, shoved Maritza inside, and urged the driver to move.

In typical city fashion, the driver was completely disinterested as to why two breathless, terrified, scuffed up women had fallen into the back of his cab. He pulled away from the curb and off into the night.

* * *

Walker had personally dropped Tony off at his apartment to ensure he would not spend yet another night passed out on his desk. There were still files to go through, though. Kate had dropped off some North Star cases earlier and they'd finally gotten the go-ahead on some of Shepard's emails. Most of it had gotten a first look that afternoon by either Nathan or Tony, but a second look never hurt. Especially since they had a whole lot of zilch so far.

Nathan had tried to make Tony promise to do nothing but drink a few beers and watch a movie. Tony had only said he would try. It made his partner feel better, Tony knew. Cases like this Walker worried about not pulling his full weight—that trying to get home to his girls, to actually make a soccer game or parent conference, would mean he wasn't contributing to the case. Tony, of course, thought this was ridiculous. It wasn't like he had any obligations outside of work, really, and a few extra hours doing grunt work was an easy sacrifice if it meant Walker got to be a proper father. It was an endless debate between the partners, one that wasn't likely to be settled anytime soon. Showing up in the morning with a lead would go a long way to soothing Nathan's unnecessary guilt.

Tony's head swam with new information after settling down with the files, pizza, and a beer at the coffee table. Nothing jumped out at him yet, though. He figured a shower would help focus his thoughts. If not, there was always another beer and a basketball game on to distract him before he finally fell asleep. Undoubtedly, after a few hours crashed on the couch, he'd wake up with a better grasp of the case.

Just as he was settling in after his shower, his phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and smiled. Ziva.

"Professor David, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Detective, where are you right now?"

Tony's smile disappeared. The words sounded promising, but the tone was all wrong. "At my apartment. Why? What's wrong?"

Ziva let out a bark of a laugh. "I have one of Jenny's girls here. I cannot get ahold of her and, after a thug shot out my tire, we are driving around aimlessly in a taxi."

Tony blinked at the TV. His brain refused to process the information. "_What_?"

"I have a girl. We were shot at. We need somewhere to go and I am fairly certain this relates to your case." The words were rattled off in rapid-fire with escalating impatience.

Tony was still hopelessly confused. "You rescued _another_ girl?"

"Not by choice," was her gritted response. "She would prefer not to go to the police station."

"Okay," he glanced around his small living space. "Come to my apartment then. We will figure it out." He rattled off his address. Ziva got shot at _again_? Twice in one week? She was fast approaching his all-time record. Visions of the mysterious dark-haired beauty flashed in his brain. Images that weren't entirely professional. Down right pornographic, more like.

"Thank you," Ziva exhaled, sounding suddenly exhausted. "We will be there soon. We will also need your credit card." Then she hung up.

* * *

A few minutes later, Tony was paying off a hefty meter total and escorting a finely dressed Ziva and a drunken teenager into his apartment.

"Welcome to Casa DiNozzo," Tony gestured around the one-bedroom. It was small, but functional. He'd lucked out with a nicely rehabbed kitchen, though he never cooked. Still, he took care of the place and it was homey—a comfortable couch, a top of the line flat screen TV and entertainment center, and built-in bookshelves full of DVDs.

"Nice," Ziva looked him up and down with an arched brow, talking a slow walk through his space. She stopped at the small archway that led to his bedroom and gave the room a quick once-over. "A full?" She turned back to him with disbelief.

He shrugged, "That's all the room I need to work."

Ziva laughed.

Maritza remained in the doorway, shivering. Tony took pity on her and walked over with a blanket. Wrapping the young girl up in it, he helped guide her to sit on the couch. Ziva watched him with a soft look on her face.

"So sounds like you ladies had an eventful night," Tony began, earning a nervous giggle from Maritza. "Let's hear what happened."

* * *

Ziva sat on Tony's leather couch as she waited for him to return to the room. He was on the phone with his partner just a few feet away in the kitchen, relaying the information they'd given him so that Detective Walker could get the proper alerts out. Maritza was quietly sniffling into the blanket on the couch, lost in her own thoughts. Ziva spared her a look of sympathy but found it hard to keep her eyes from drifting over to Detective DiNozzo.

It stirred something inside of her listening to his hushed conversation with his partner as he detailed the situation. DiNozzo was a fairly tall man with broad shoulders, not overweight but built thickly. The men she'd worked with in her past life tended to be more slender, more of an unassuming physical presence until their strength was called upon. Still, there was a common way that a man held himself who was confident in his physicality. Here, now, in his own home, DiNozzo still stood tall, muscles strung and ready for a fight.

It was adrenaline, really. It made the body taller, leaner, and heated. Her story had sent the detective into immediate action and now Ziva could only sit back and watch. It was hard to do, what with all the adrenaline still coursing through her own body. It made Ziva recall one of the sometimes added benefits of her last job—the comedown from a mission well done. Minds and bodies still buzzing, still needing a release, it wasn't exactly uncommon to find that release in the arms of a teammate. The sex was generally meaningless and always good. It wasn't something she missed per se, but watching Tony pace his small apartment, muscles flexing beneath his worn t-shirt, voice low and urgent, well, Ziva couldn't help but wish this particular mission could have such a beneficial outcome.

Frustrated, Ziva began picking at her cuticles.

Tony ended his phone conversation and headed back in their direction. Ziva shook her head clear of her wayward thoughts.

"My partner is heading the search for Matty and his crew," he nodded at Ziva before turning to Maritza. "My friend, Kate, is coming over. She's with the FBI, okay?" Tony sat on the edge of his coffee table, leveling himself with Maritza. He was careful to keep his tone kind and non-threatening, Ziva noted. It put Maritza at ease; she seemed to watch him with a bald-faced trust that impressed Ziva.

"Is she going to…?" Maritza let out something between a sob and a hiccup. "Am I in trouble?"

Ziva swiveled her head to look at Tony sharply. He'd been good so far, sticking mostly to the details of the night's events, and allowing Maritza to hedge around the bounds of her relationship with Matty. Here was the tricky part, Ziva knew. Prostitution was illegal. Maritza could face charges if Tony decided to go there. Jenny had often complained to Ziva that law enforcement often resorted to pushing charges on the victims to get to the bigger fish, the traffickers. Ziva had a feeling that Tony wouldn't cart this vulnerable girl off to jail, but her instincts had been wrong before. And now he was bringing in the FBI?

Tony held up a hand, keeping Ziva's temper at bay and calming Maritza's panic. "I'm a homicide cop, Maritza. Not vice. My friend Kate works for a group that helps girls who are in situations like the one I suspect you're in. She works with North Star, too."

"North Star…" Maritza shivered. "That's where Jenny, I mean, Professor Shepard wanted me to go."

"Exactly. And we'll talk more about that." Tony flashed a grin at Maritza that seemed to light up her face in response. "We are all here to help you, okay? Kate, too. You're not in trouble here. Not tonight."

"What will happen to Matty?" Maritza asked in a small voice, toying with her blanket.

Ziva let out a long breath and looked to the ceiling. Tony shot her a warning look, which she promptly ignored.

"What Matty is doing is a crime," Ziva couldn't help the edge in her voice as she jumped in to answer, "and hopefully he will be prosecuted accordingly."

Maritza dissolved into tears again. "But Matty wasn't the one who… Matty just listens to his uncle, okay? He _cares_ about me, I know it, and sometimes he just uses too much and then—

"He tried to _shoot_ us," Ziva cut off Maritza's blathering. Normally, she could tolerate a certain degree of adolescent immaturity; she dealt with it on a daily basis after all. But the injustice of Maritza's current situation seemed to tap directly into Ziva's need for swift justice rather than her sympathy.

Tony stood up, putting his back to Maritza, and fixed a look that clearly said to knock it off to Ziva.

"_Hey_," he snapped, glaring at Ziva. Ziva, not happy with being chastised in such a way, scowled back at the detective.

Composing himself, Tony turned so that Maritza could see his face again; it was now drawn into a mask of calm. "Look, Maritza, Matty made some bad choices tonight and he will have to deal with those consequences. You are not in any way responsible for those choices, do you understand?"

Maritza nodded.

"Good. Now tonight we are going to talk about the choices you can make going forward. Because our job is to keep you safe, got that?" Tony leveled his gaze with the young woman. Ziva was less impressed by the placation this time around because her faith was rapidly dwindling that she'd truly done anything to help Maritza tonight. Whatever life Maritza was in right now, she wasn't ready to leave it yet.

Ziva sat, stewing in her mood, as Tony directed Maritza toward clean clothes and the shower while they waited for his FBI friend to arrive. She bit her lip and mentally ran through all the things she would say to Jenny for getting her into this mess.

"Jumping down the victim's throat?" Tony shot off flippantly after the shower started running and he came back to the living room. "Not exactly helpful, Ziva."

"She will go right back to him. Tonight was a waste of our time," Ziva scoffed, picking at her nails again. This time it was in a concentrated effort to nonverbally dismiss the detective. Anger burned a familiar ring around her heart. Deep down, she knew it wasn't entirely fair to direct it all at a broken young woman, but examining why it should be channeled anywhere else at this moment was too much.

Collapsing on the couch next to her with a groan, the fight seemed to seep from Tony. This confused Ziva, as she was still ready to burn off the remaining buzz in her blood and if sex wasn't on the agenda, then a good verbal sparring could suffice. She made a face at DiNozzo, which he missed because he was closing his eyes.

"You never know." Tony propped his legs up on the coffee table. He folded his hands under his head, shifting his body to find a comfortable position. It somehow led to him scooting closer to her, so that the tangible heat of his body was in touching distance. "If I've learned one thing, it's that you never know what the victim is really thinking—tonight's indifference could be tomorrow's will to leave." He yawned.

They fell into a silence. It wasn't exactly comfortable, well, for Ziva at least. Tony seemed quite zoned out. Ziva tried to hold onto her anger despite the fact that Tony's slow, even breaths filled the quiet room. Behind the bathroom door, the muffled spray of the shower could be heard. The detective didn't seem to mind that she was perched next to him on the couch. Kicking her shoes off, she stifled a groan at the sensation of blood rushing to her recently tortured feet. She didn't even want to look at how damaged they were. She tucked them up under her body, resting her weight on her arm that rested on the back of the couch. Tony's eyes remained closed, though she wasn't fooled that he was sleeping. She could tell he watched her beneath those unfairly long lashes. Since turnabout was fair play, she let her own eyes wander over his frame. She kept a scowl on her face, though, lest he think she was suddenly happy with this situation.

"I do not know how you do it," she confessed, thinking of how many times Tony must've dealt with similar situations. "A rescue mission with no clear exit strategy."

A grin curled on Tony's lips. He opened his eyes fully to regard her, those sea-blue depths twinkling at her. "What? You think we should just pluck her from this situation, lock up the bad guy, and her life will be normal again? There's more to it than that. There's a whole psychology at work here."

"I know that," Ziva said emphatically. And she knew that all too well. "It does not make it any easier to watch her continue to suffer, to continue to choose a life that was never her choice at all."

"No, it doesn't," Tony agreed. He studied her carefully. Ziva shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny. "Why did Jenny give Maritza your number?"

Her whole body tensed with the question, drawing into itself protectively. She made the mistake of catching DiNozzo's gaze, so heavy and intense she could feel it burn her skin even as she looked away.

"I do not know," she answered. Half-truths were not quite lies, after all, and would generally pass the test.

Tony sat forward again, lowering his feet to the floor. He turned to her and though his posture remained relaxed, there was a rigidness to him now that suggested he was back to business. Refusing to say more, Ziva mirrored his posture, putting up a confident façade of her own. They sat in silence for a long moment. She could see the wheels turning in Tony's head, watched things click into place, and struggled to keep her composure. She must be losing her touch to be struggling under such a soft interrogation.

The sudden screech of the hot water shutting off broke their stalemate. Ziva flinched.

"A rescue mission with no clear exit strategy," Tony murmured her own words back to Ziva. His eyes softened as they brushed over her face. "That's why she called you."

Not waiting to read her reaction, Tony stood and went to the kitchen. Ziva clasped her trembling hands together.

* * *

In his darkened kitchen, Tony dug through his sparse cupboards. His long work hours meant he didn't keep much on hand. His tendency to spend his off-nights losing himself in tumblers of whiskey meant that what little he did have tended to be perfect hangover food. After tossing a few stale boxes of cereal in the trash, he stumbled upon an unopened box of Saltine crackers. Perfect. Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, he turned to go back to the living room.

And found himself face to face with Professor Ziva David, lurking in the shadows. He jumped.

"Sorry," she grinned, not sorry at all. Before he could make a comment about her sneaking up on him, she popped a hip to the side and waved the stilettos that dangled from her hands. It was a move so calculated in its sexiness that he forgot to breathe for a second. And what a change from the angry, hardened woman he'd left in his living room.

"Crackers?" He held the box aloft, cringing at his response. It was like he'd never had a beautiful woman in his apartment before. (And, fine, he didn't tend to bring too many women back to his own apartment, let alone have them show up with a teenager after being shot at and chased under suspicious circumstances so he supposed he could give himself a little leeway on this one.)

Ziva made a face and shook her head. "No, thank you." She paused, and then wriggled a bare foot in his direction. "First aid kit?" Though momentarily distracted by her beautifully toned leg, he winced when he took in her foot.

"Yeesh."

"I know." Though the rest of her somehow still looked impeccable after the night's events, her feet were a mess. Red, swollen, and covered in oozing blisters, they were not a good advertisement for wearing stilettos in a foot chase.

"First aid kit is in the bathroom." Unsure exactly how to help Ziva in that moment, he handed her the bottle of water he'd retrieved for Maritza. She accepted it with a small smile as he went back to the fridge for another.

"When Maritza is finished, I will clean and bandage them," she said decisively, turning back towards the living room on her heels.

Tony gave her an appreciative once-over. His mind went back over her earlier comments and, beyond that, all the strange things he'd learned about her so far. He'd known this woman a handful of days and she'd impressed him every one. She wasn't even a cop; certainly she was more than a bookish professor. Yeah, eight years in the military but her instincts seemed far more impressive than that. More special forces than combat. Whoever this woman was or wasn't, she was profoundly interesting. And beautiful. Did he mention that?

"You are staring, Tony," Ziva tossed back over her shoulder.

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. So."

Lazy smile on her face, she turned back to look at him. "So… It is not polite."

He fell into the molten heat of her eyes. "I'm not trying to be polite, Ziva." His chest tightened when her gaze dropped to his lips.

"I've noticed," Ziva said, her voice liquid honey. She paused, taking her time to uncap her bottle of water then take a long, slow drink. "You are honest, Tony. I like that."

Tony shrugged. True. He was good at playing any number of roles, but when push came to shove, he hated to lie. He was also now thoroughly confused by this woman. He had rattled her in the living room before, that much was clear. He had no doubt his words had struck close to home, though what exactly home was he'd still yet to figure out. But in a few minutes' time she was back, up and fighting, in full-on seduction mode, appealing to his vanity and…to what end? Just to get the upper hand?

"What about you, Ziva?" He drew her name out in a way that seemed to spark a flash of annoyance from her. He stepped closer into her personal space, liking how she didn't back down from him. Her chin tilted up in clear defiance. She wouldn't acquiesce her territory, and that was fine with him because he relished the heat rolling from her body. "Are you being honest with me?"

Well, that cut deep. The slow burn in her expression died down, turned cold as ice. "Yes. I am."

"About the case, sure, I buy that but…" He studied her carefully. He could see her struggle to uphold the façade. She wavered on her feet a bit. "There's more to you than what your dossier says. I may not be a great cop, but I know that much."

Pulling strength from somewhere, Ziva stood up taller. The corners of her eyes crinkled, almost as if in fear, though that didn't seem quite right. "This case is not about me. Why does it matter?"

Tony held her gaze. "It doesn't matter to the case but… It matters."

Ziva scoffed. Her face smoothed out again. "Right. Well, I believe Maritza is done."

She winced as she moved on her bruised feet. It made it easy for Tony to catch up to her before she ran off to the bathroom. He gently circled her wrist with his fingers as he leaned into her. Her breath quickened. Under the pad of his finger, he felt her pulse leap. He increased the pressure of his touch. And though he felt her urge to flee, felt the slight pull of her muscles, she remained frozen. Struck. Panicked.

"Ziva," he whispered, watching wisps of her hair flutter with his breath. "There's a reason Jenny involved you in this, why you were given this rescue mission. I can't see it yet, but I will." He was careful to keep any threat from his tone. He released her wrist, not wanting her to feel trapped by him. "I don't like it any more than you do. But we're in this now. And it matters."

Ziva's eyes slid closed and remained that way as he stepped back. There was a moment, a brief second, where it looked like she might be on the verge of tears. But as quick as the look appeared, it vanished, and Ziva was hobbling off the bathroom. Tony watched her go.

He wondered if he should be worried that in this whole messy case, the mystery that most intrigued him was her.

* * *

The young girl whose driver's license stated her age as twenty looked no more than sixteen curled up under a blanket on Tony's couch, hair still damp from a shower and make-up scrubbed from her face. She nibbled on crackers between gulps of water, trying to kick the last of the alcohol in her system.

"Maritza," Tony continued, from his perch on the couch's arm, "it's okay. Kate can help you, remember?"

The young girl remained unconvinced. This is why Kate resented Jenny Shepard's tactics. Here was a young girl, by her own account roped into servitude as an escort, drawn in by an older man who showered her with gifts and called himself her boyfriend. And then, when bills came due, subtly manipulated her into turning tricks for some cash. A carefully built and navigated slippery slope that had young Maritza in too deep before she even realized she was going under. And now this young girl, not even legally able to drink, was plied with alcohol each night because if she didn't, that same man would beat her up, assault her, threaten her life and her family members for debts she owed that she never knew she'd taken on.

"This is all my fault, anyway," Maritza swiped at her nose with the baggy arm of her sweatshirt. "I should've known…"

"You could not have known," Ziva said firmly, eyes intense. "That is how this works. That is how this man preyed on you and preys on other girls like you."

Kate's eyes flicked from Ziva to Tony, catching the approving look he sent Ziva's way. Though it seemed like a struggle, Ziva sent one back as well. Kate frowned.

"If you could give us his name, we can start building a case against him," Kate prodded in a voice carefully modulated with gentleness.

Maritza shook her head, terror creeping on her features. "No. _No_. He said he would hurt my family… My little sister, she's just six years old. And my father, he would never forgive me, if he found out…"

Kate expelled a short breath. "We can protect them. We can protect _you_."

Tony caught Kate's eye and nodded, picking up the conversation thread. "Hold off on a name for now, Maritza. Just tell us how you met him."

"I don't know…" Maritza bit her lip, glancing down at the recording device Kate had set out.

"You can do it, Maritza," Ziva encouraged, voice not gentle but full of strength. Kate watched it lift the young girl. "Stop this from happening to another girl like you."

With a shaky sigh, Maritza let the decision weigh on her a moment before speaking. "I met him at a networking thing for school, through my co-ed fraternity. He… he seemed so nice but mysterious at the same time. He told me I was really smart and pretty. You know, I don't feel like that a lot. Most of the kids in my frat come from money and I'm…well, just another poor scholarship kid. He made me feel special."

"Do you remember the name of this event?" Tony asked, pen at the ready.

Maritza shrugged. "Not really…but it was during orientation week, that Friday night."

"How long before he forced you to turn tricks?" Tony continued. It was clear Maritza trusted him the most. It was odd, usually young women in her situation found it easier to speak with other women. But Tony seemed to have tapped into his charming side, conveying a sort of protective big brother vibe, and it was working.

"A few weeks, I guess," Maritza's lower lip trembled as she glanced up at Kate. "I wasn't going to go home for fall break because I couldn't afford the ticket. He offered to buy it for me. I thought he was just being nice…. being like, a _boyfriend_. And when I got back to town, he had this party, all of these people that he works with." She took a deep breath. "He told me that I owed him. It was a first class ticket and if I wanted to repay him, I could _spend some time with his friend_." Maritza started crying again. "I'm so stupid. I didn't even really get it at first. I'd been drinking champagne all night and I just… I didn't even get what was happening and then I thought that maybe it was my fault somehow."

"It was not your fault," Ziva interjected in that steely tone again. Maritza looked up at Ziva, a strange mix of gratitude and fear on her face. That was it, then. Ziva had been Maritza's hero tonight, earning the young woman's trust. But Ziva was the muscle, the one who stared down bullets, and then Tony had come in with sympathy, kindness, and a hot shower. They'd forged a tentative trust with the girl and it would therefore fall on them to guide her out of this mess. Tony, Kate trusted to see this through. Ziva…well, Kate could only hope.

"I thought it would just be a few times…and when I was drinking and he was buying me all this nice stuff… It didn't seem that wrong," Maritza shrugged. "He used to tell me that it was noble profession. That women have this gift. Sexual currency, he'd called it. That it was my power and I'd be stupid not to trade in on it."

Tony and Kate were both careful to keep their expressions neutral. Ziva was having a harder time, her eyes narrowed and mouth drawn tight. Kate could practically feel the heat of her anger.

"When did things change, Maritza?" Kate passed the young woman some Kleenex.

"January. School started back up again, but he kept wanting me to skip classes. He wanted me to travel with him, meet his friends in Europe or wherever. But I don't have a passport yet, so," Maritza shrugged. "He sort of lost interest, I guess. That's when I met Matty."

"How'd you meet Matty?" Tony asked.

Maritza sighed, eyes tired as she looked up at Tony. "Kirby. That's his name, okay? My ex-boyfriend...pimp or whatever," Maritza spat the word out, nothing but loathing in her expression. Whether it was at the man or herself, or some twisted mix of both, remained to be seen. "_Kirby_. It's stupid and obviously a nickname. Kirby is Matty's uncle or something. I met Matty at one of his parties and we started to hang out. He was cool. And he never asked me to...well, not back then anyway." Maritza blew her nose then took a deep breath. "Matty's uncle tells him he'll take away his money if he doesn't follow his rules. And some of Kirby's friends? They aren't exactly nice guys and they have money and connections and all this power..."

The tissue in Maritza's hands was now shredded to bits. Kate watched her with sympathy. Her story wasn't unique in any way. Far too many girls found themselves in similar situations, which is why she even had a job. It didn't make it any easier to hear though, no matter how many girls told the story.

Tears now dried up, Maritza just burrowed deeper into her blanket. "I don't know what to do. Tonight, I was just so scared. Matty had been using and he was so _angry_. Not with me, but that doesn't mean he won't, you know, take it out on me. Professor Shepard had said that if I ever felt truly in danger to call her or her friend and they'd help, no questions…."

Kate watched as Ziva's face hardened in response, completely unreadable.

She understood why Jenny Shepard had taken matters into her own hands. Clearly, when Shepard noticed the signs of trafficking in her young student (per Maritza's account, it was an essay response to one of Shepard's lectures, a cry for help) she had done what she thought was helpful. Maritza hadn't been fully convinced, hadn't really seen herself the victim, and wasn't willing to seek North Star's help on her own, let alone involve the authorities. But Shepard had made the girl promise if she ever felt threatened or in danger, not to call the police but to get in touch with Jenny. Or if not Jenny, Ziva.

Kate turned her attention to the woman who had answered the call. She knew enough about her from DiNozzo's investigation—a close friend of Shepard's apparently with unexpectedly latent defensive skills. For some reason, Jenny trusted her with a mission that had, by Ziva's account, never been explained to her. Yet it had been executed with relatively few flaws.

Ziva was an interesting woman. She possessed that effortless elegance that Kate resented—hair that somehow fell in perfect, natural curls, a lithe figure that looked stunning even in a plain black dress, and skin that seemed to glow with only the slightest hint of make-up. Despite the urge to dislike her for her genetic lotto ticket, Kate had to admit the woman was savvy. Once Kate had arrived on scene to deal with Maritza, to explain her options and what might happen moving forward, Ziva had merely sat next to the young girl, offering silent support and occasionally pushing a cracker her way. She listened. She didn't act like she knew the answers, despite having good instincts, and, most importantly, regarded DiNozzo with a skeptical eye.

"It is up to you, Maritza. You make the choice," Ziva spoke after Kate and Tony had exhausted their arguments. "Either Agent Todd will take you to the halfway house, where you have no obligation to stay beyond tonight, or we can drop you off at your apartment. Your decision."

Maritza took a swig of water. Kate watched her closely. The college student was smart, just confused. Kate couldn't blame her. She'd found herself in a tight situation and was now working her way out of it. Part of the cycle of this particular abuse was deep manipulation, damn near brainwashing, that made it very difficult for victims to rework their thinking patterns and escape. It was the nature of this beast and what made her job so difficult.

"I think…" Maritza paused. "I think I am willing to go to the shelter. For tonight at least."

Looking at the ceiling, Kate exhaled in relief. "Okay. That's fair. Can we take you there now?"

Maritza nodded and placed her bottle of water on the coffee table.

"You can borrow my clothes," Tony winked as the young woman stood up, slightly awkward over what came next.

Maritza smiled as she smoothed her hands over the worn Metro PD sweatshirt and the flannel pajama pants that engulfed her small frame. "Thank you, Detective DiNozzo."

Kate couldn't help but smile at the deference. Then, she remembered what Tony had asked her to bring. From her bag, she produced two pairs of only slightly used flip-flops.

"I think these might be helpful," she said, waiving them in the air. "They might not be the right size but…"

"Oh, thank you!" Ziva exclaimed, grabbing for one of the pairs and then tossing the other pair to Maritza. Kate looked on in sympathy at the blistered feet of the two women. Thankfully, the flip-flops proved a passable fit on each of them. Tony watched them all with a look of awed confusion.

"We ready…?" Kate cued, wanting to make it back home sometime that night.

"Yes," Maritza said, taking a deep breath. Ziva helped her stand up.

"Ladies. Thank you for gracing my humble home with your presence. I hope you all come back to visit very soon," Tony teased, ushering them out the door. Leading the way, Kate didn't miss that Tony's arm shot out to keep Ziva behind the rest of the group, whispering something into her ear that made a secret smile bloom on her lips. Kate rolled her eyes heavenwards.

* * *

A few minutes later, they were all safely buckled into Kate's car and on their way to North Star's halfway house. Maritza was dozing in the back seat. Ziva had her gaze fixed on the world that passed her by.

There was a comment on the tip of Kate's tongue. A vague thought that she knew should keep to herself but, well, she hadn't come this far in life without getting herself into, and out of, some uncomfortable situations.

"DiNozzo seems to have taken an interest in you," Kate broached the subject she just couldn't let go. There was an obvious vibe between the detective and the witness. It wasn't ideal. Not for their case, not for their victims, and certainly not for Tony's career. The last thing this already unorthodox investigation needed was more messiness. She glanced over at her passenger to see Ziva's reaction. There wasn't much of one.

"Really." Ziva responded with little inflection in her voice. She kept her eyes trained on the passing storefronts.

"Of course," Kate continued, warming to her message, "DiNozzo shows interest in pretty much any attractive woman that crosses his path."

Ziva lifted her head enough to grant Kate a look that made her feel all of ten inches tall. "Your point?"

"Look, Ziva, you seem like an intelligent woman," Kate began. She ignored the answering scoff from her passenger. Yes, she'd pretty much backed herself into a corner wherein anything she said would sound catty. But she was now more confident than ever this had to be said. Tony was her friend, after all. "Tony is a good guy. One of the best cops I've ever worked with. He is smart, loyal, and has solid instincts. But when he's in deep on a case, and with a case like this I think we can all agree we're already in the thick of it, he doesn't think clearly. He loses himself."

Ziva turned to study her. "What do you mean?"

Kate was momentarily flummoxed by Ziva's sudden interest in her words. "The job is his life. Others can find the balance, stay objective. But Tony wants to save everyone. He puts his whole heart into every case, every victim. Sometimes he can't separate himself from the work."

Ziva traced the skyline they drove past with her finger. "And you think his interest in me is only because of my connection to this case."

Pursing her lips, Kate continued, "I'm saying, I think it will be difficult for him to know."

"Yet you presume to know what he is thinking?" Ziva sniped.

"You're right," Kate agreed. She paused, unsure how much further to take this. Clearly, Ziva wasn't planning on hearing it. But Tony didn't exactly seem to be learning from past mistakes. "It's just that I've seen Tony go down this road before and I've seen the aftermath. This is not just for your benefit. I don't want to see him get hurt again, either. And I don't want him to put his career in jeopardy."

Ziva dropped her hand to her lap and turned to Kate with a piercing stare. "You seem to have quite an interest in Tony's choices."

Kate couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah. Weird, right?"

"Hmm." Ziva went back to looking out the window.

"He is a friend. And I am happily married," Kate flushed. She tapped an awkward beat on the steering wheel. "Look, I'm not saying it wouldn't work out. Maybe it would. But just…be careful."

"I appreciate your candor," Ziva said without a touch of sincerity.

Kate sighed. She checked out Ziva at a red light. Something in the way the woman stared off into the distance made her wonder if her warning wasn't far too late.


End file.
